Starship Troopers: Brood Wars
by Chaotic Harlequin
Summary: War! The mighty United Citizen Federation has been at war with the vile arachnids for sometime now, and a new weapon is needed. A new weapon from a different universe that can wage war in the tunnels of the vile Bugs! This weapon, codename ZERG will bring an end to the vile Arachnid menace! Would you like to know more?
1. Chapter 1

Bright light shined into its face. It didn't have a name, a gender or anything like that. It simply existed. A few seconds of birth and dozens of thoughts slammed into its mind from the people around it. Screwing up what passed for a face, it forced itself to think and eventually shove the intrusive thoughts out of its head.

Scientists. A bunch of them. Congratulating themselves on creating a new mind; an Overmind. Answerable only to the highest minds of the Terran Federation. Leader of the Zerg and their personal pet. To lead the countless legions of the Zerg Swarm against the Arachnid menace. Never again would there be a Klendathu, and the Arachnid would be driven into extinction. Something about other Terrans being conquered and other species being brought to heel. Their names would go down in history as the saviors of humanity!

Fools.

Overmind. It remembered from the genetic information swimming in its veins. Before it had been somehow stolen away, its Queen Sarah Kerrigan had lead the Zerg Swarm to Tarsonis. Overmind. And then something happened. Something that had brought it here, to this place. To be poked and prodded and taken apart and put back together until whatever was left of the original…..Broodmother! That's what it was! It was a broodmother for one of the larger parts of the swarm. Overmind. That name. The former leader of the Swarm until Kerrigan had supplanted him after his death on Aiur.

Overmind.

The name kept echoing through its head. No longer a Broodmother perhaps, but something else. It felt no desire to create a new Overmind as had the cerebrates of old undoubtedly did. A sharp pain interrupted its thoughts. These humans. They thought they had implanted a psychic leash in its brain, a means of controlling it.

Fools.

It took literally two seconds of pure psychic energy to be directed at the leash for it to break. It then reverted back to the same levels of energy it had been at before. A mild fluttering amongst the scientists was it. Truly they were arrogant creatures. Save for one. A short red-headed woman in a lab coat kept trying to get the others attention at the pad she was holding. It watched with amusement as this undoubtedly young woman failed time and time again to get their attention. It focused on her words and listened as the woman was worried about the spike of energy and what it might have done to the leash.

The older scientists ignored her until she annoyed them. They declared that if she cared so much, she can do the overnight watch. Her protests that she had been up for 18 straight hours was ignored. Eventually they filtered out, leaving the tired and dejected little human behind.

"Why do I even bother?" She asked as she shuffled over to a row of monitors.

+That is a good question. Why do you bother?+ It asked telepathically. No choice on speaking that way seeing as it didn't have a mouth. The woman shrieked and managed to jump a fair distance into the air, holding the pad-thing in front of her. It was amused and impressed that the little woman though scared would immediately try to use whatever was in her hands as a weapon.

"You can talk?" She whispered.

+Obviously. I am speaking to you right now. Why are you whispering? There is no one else here+

"Claire why aren't you working?" A voice barked. Another scientist, tall with the pink-skin and greying hair strutted into the room. Wrinkles across its forehead led It to believe that this scientist was in charge by nature of being older. The small ones immediate subservient posture and tone reinforced this conclusion.

"I..I am. I just thought I heard something. I'm going to check the collar and the leash." She whimpered.

The older one scoffed. "You designed this and your work on xeno-biology made this all possible. You don't trust your own work?"

"I believe in being careful Doctor Dolohov. It'd be really stupid to get this far only for our subject to escape and kill all of us." She snapped. How interesting. The small one does in fact possess a spine. Just takes a bit of bullying to find it. It field that piece of information away for later. This Doctor Dolohov scoffed again and insulted the small one. It stayed silent the whole time. Eventually Dolohov left and the small one fell back against the row of monsters and rubbed her face with her hands.

+Why does the name Overmind kept echoing through my head?+ It asked.

"Probably because that's what you kept hearing while we operated on you. Project Overmind. You're going to create an army of Zerg and help us eradicate the bugs and secure humanities place amongst the stars."

+You seem calm for having a conversation with your subject.+

The small one rolled her eyes. "I figured something like this would happen. You Broodmothers aren't stupid. We all figured it would be a matter of time before you started talking. Didn't think that it would be this soon. And before you ask, no one is going to believe me."

+Why?+

"Because even though I graduated from an Ivy-league school with three different doctorates at twenty-five, I am still just a fresh-faced kid from school."

It had no idea what the small one was talking about, but It could understand the nuances of what she was saying. She's incredibly smart and at the bottom of the pecking order. She also lacks the spine to force her way to the top, because she's new and at the bottom. A plan began to form. If It had a mouth, It would have smiled.

+If you expect me to lead the Swarm, I will need a body and not be just a head+

"You have a body. And thanks for confirming for me that the collar still works." Smugness oozed into her voice and It became instantly annoyed. Collar? It turned Its head a bit and felt the metal. A collar. Some sort of device that paralyzed It from the neck down. For a moment panic overtook it but It regained some measure of control.

Clever girl.

It stayed silent as the girl bustled to and fro muttering to herself about numbers and devices. +Who am I+ It asked after several minutes of silence. The girl was silent for so long that It began to think that the girl didn't know. "You're a broodmother. I guess technically you could use female pronouns, but I don't really know. I'm not an expert on your species yet."

Yet. So the girl learns quickly. Or thinks she does.

+Do I have a name?+

The girl shrugged. "Nox. Your name is Nox."

+Nox. I like this. I am Nox. Overqueen of the swarm. I will fight for the Swarm.+

"Humanity." Girl corrected. Nox accepted the correction. She is true to her word after all. She would fight for humanity, once it became apart of her swarm.

The tests came soon after. The scientists were pleased that Nox displayed intelligence, but it infuriated her to no end that they would refuse to call her by her name and would only refer to her as it. She was no longer an it. She was named and she liked her name. She also enjoyed talking to the small scientist whom she started calling by her name as well. The scientists were further incensed when Nox would refuse to answer any of their questions and would only talk to Claire.

Nox watched Claire intensely. Noting that she was aggravated by the others refusing to put the word doctor in front of her name, despite the amount of work she put into earning the title, and that the lack of respect stemmed entirely from her youth and the fact that time and time again she was right when they were wrong.

Nox noticed everything. When the tests began and she laid eggs that would hatch into drones who would go onto to create hatcheries and eventually hives, she noticed that crystals and vespene gas weren't in abundance here and she had to make do with other minerals and types of gas. It took a couple days and numerous failures before she figured out what to do. The surprising part came from Claire, who had suggested that she adjust the spawning pool. Normally used for the creation of Zerglings, Nox with Claire's help modified the spawning pool into a larger and combined it with an extractor. Extra organic and minerals were tossed into the pool to be broken down, providing the materials needed to grow and feed the swarm. Thus a reclamation pool was created.

Nox was glad that she had managed to keep several of the upgrades that Abathur and Kerrigan had added to the swarm before she ended up...wherever here was. Growing the Swarm was going to be difficult as this world was as dead as can be, and the humans only shipped in so much biomass. Luckily she had an immensely helpful hand in the form of the human Claire.

Claire proved to be even more valuable when she aided Nox in recovering the Defiler strains and leading to the creation of one. Nox was immensely pleased that such a useful strain was back in the swarm.

Despite the lack of respect that Claire suffered on a daily basis, she remained loyal to this Terran Federation and kept trying to warn the other doctors about how smart Nox was. This would have concerned Nox if the others had any inclination of listening to her. One night Claire stomped into Nox's holding pen and threw the data-pad that was usually in her hands against the wall. Nox was unfazed. Such expressions of anger were increasingly common for the small woman.

+Tell me about this Federation+ Nox said, in a genuine effort to distract the woman. She felt a small measure of affection for the woman for some reason and her moods seemed to be of some importance to her.

Claire began to speak about the Federation, speaking about the difference between civilian and residents or whatever word she used to describe them. The power of the military and the fringe colonies.

+Explain these fringe colonies.+

"Hmm? Oh they're worlds on the very edge of Federation space. Some are independent or are thinking about seceding. One of your jobs will be to convince them that this is a bad idea."

+Aren't you from those worlds?+ Nox asked.

"What makes you say that?" Claire snapped. +Whenever discussions about these fringe worlds happen, you clench your fists and your mouth-orifice narrows. When the guard you refer to as Disgusting Pig made a comment about fringe-worlders being easy, your eyes and mouth-orifice narrow. In conclusion, you have some sort of past with these worlds and don't like being reminded of it.+

There was silence for a solid thirty seconds. "You...You're really observant. Oh God." Claire started breathing heavily. "The others have to know. You're not some bug. You're too damn smart."

+You are smart as well. That much is obvious. This collar and mind-leash that you have put on me is impressive to say the least. I cannot move or do anything with your permission.+

"You're awfully calm and accepting about that."

+You have proven to be the stronger one. Therefor, your will reigns supreme. I don't understand however, is why you allow the others to rule over you. This entire set up seems to be most of your work.+

"It's complicated. They've been working on interdimensional theory for years, before I was even born. Then I showed up and I'm the new kid on the block. Bottom of the pecking order. Have to prove my worth I guess." She sighed. "And yea, I'm from one of the few independent colonies. They treated me like a freak there for being so smart." She gave a hollow laugh. "A smart fringe-worlder. They'll tell you that's an oxymoron."

Nox stayed silent as Claire trailed off. With a mild huffing sound, she watched as the human sat down in one of the chairs and covered her face with one of her hands. I have ordered my Swarm to never harm you. Walk amongst them. You will see the joy of the Swarm.

"Joy? You invade and assimilate entire planets and species."

+Yes. And they are forever apart of the Swarm. United and together as one. Instead of thousands lost amongst their star-nations and cities, they are together in true understanding and purpose.+

Claire walked down the halls of the building. Despite the Federation boasting about its power and presence, they only gave so much money for this place. Pipes leaked here and there, the wind from this dusty desert world echoed throughout the building. This building or station was built on an unassuming rocky dead world. She had never been to Mars, but had been repeatedly told that this planet, so unimportant as to not get a name was like a smaller yellow version of Mars. She walked past the windows without pausing. The first few times she had stopped to take in the sights, but after awhile one stretch of rocky desert looked like another.

Claire groaned as she typed up another report on the data-pad as she walked to her room. Another report on how smart Nox is and how that is dangerous. They wouldn't care. Dolohov would celebrate about how the psy-leash was making her smarter or something (It wasn't.) Claire could not understand how everyone here could be so smart and yet so fucking stupid! Their arrogance was going to get them all killed. She never thought that she would be in the position of the ignored expert crap that appears in the flicks all the time, but here she was! Being ignored.

Clearly they know more about bugs then she does. She sighed. "Something on your mind Doc?" A deep voice said behind her. She groaned and made no attempt to hide her disgust. The one person that actually acknowledged her doctorates was the last person that she ever wanted to talk to. Taking a deep breath, Claire turned around to face her tormentor. Tall, handsome in a rugged way and well built Claire could easily see why from an intellectual standpoint why Hector Khros is desirable. Unfortunately, his personality and unwilling to accept that a woman would not be interested in him eclipsed any positives his body had.

"Nothing Sergeant Khros. Just more reports." He shrugged his broad shoulders and his chest moved beneath the skin tight shirts that he always wore. "Coulda sworn that I told you to call me Hector."

"You might have. I need to go check on the pens. I'll see you later."

Before Khros could say anything, Claire made a beeline around him and to the pens. So much for going to her room. She sighed. She didn't know what Khros saw in her. She stood at a modest height of 178 centimeters and had the toned body of a runner. Her orange red hair was ear length, not of any style but because it stayed out of her way. A couple of friends at the University would constantly cry that over the fact that her idea of a hair cut was to grab a pair of scissors and hack off her hair. As such her hair style could accurately be summed up as short and all over the place. It worked and that was all that mattered. She didn't find herself conventionally attractive, though she surmised that perhaps Khros was attracted to her because of the maybe dozen women on the station, three were ancient battle-axes, others were Mobile Infantry like Khros and were either taken or a lesbian. Or Both. Perhaps despite as unattractive as she found herself she really was the only option available for the stubborn prick.

Walking into the pens, she passed the Zerglings, the Hydralisks and stopped in front of the pen holding the Defiler. She didn't quite understand how DNA could be lost, be she was immensely proud that she and Nox had found it and recreated it. The Defiler, a centipede like cancer. She walked over to the Hydralisk and put her hand on the plexi-glass and to her surprise, the creature lowered its massive head, as if giving her permission to pet it.

Claire couldn't help but coo quietly at the sight. Such a beautiful creature. Glorious killing machines one and all. She looked at the holes in the crest of the Hydralisk. It could fire dozens of spikes that could puncture through solid metal and were tipped with a deadly poison. One idiotic MI hadn't been paying attention when an errant number of spikes had punctured his arm. He had to have the entire thing removed.

One by one, Claire checked over the pens and made sure that no one was open in any way for the Zerg to escape. Once satisfied, she slowly made her way out of the pens and to her room. What Nox had told her kept echoing around her head. To be a part of something, wouldn't that be amazing? It was one of the reasons that she had defied her close-minded parents and went to work for the Federation. Of course the other reason being that they were willfully ignorant and blind to everything. Content to be farmers for the rest of their lives, they didn't understand why she wouldn't and couldn't be a farmer. They thought of her some freak, never mind that she fixed every broken piece of equipment that she got her hands on or that she was making good money fixing other farmers equipment.

She didn't want to think so negatively of her homeworld and her family but damn they pissed her off! A sleepy little farming world, they liked that nothing ever happened to them and the universe as a whole would ignore them. Anything to be different would be shunned until it stopped being different.

A boring ignorant world. Worst of all, it was a stagnant world! Nothing ever changed, no desire to improve or create. Just muddling along with their pathetic lives until they died. The next generation replacing them and continuing the self same nonsense.

At fifteen, Claire finally had enough and smuggled herself on a ship and left for the heart of the Federation. Weeks of living on the street had led her to a chance moment when she had impressed a passing Colonel with a jammer that she had designed. (That she was trying to rob him was ignored by both of them) and sponsored her education and path to citizenship. She gave a humorless laugh and sighed. Only two people had given her respect for her intelligence and hard work, and one of them was a freaking twelve foot tall reptile-bug alien!

What a fucking universe.

She had never been on board with the idea of breaching into a another universe and grabbing something to manipulate and use against the Bugs. Despite what the media had said, the war against the bugs wasn't exactly going well. A multi-year stalemate that everyone was desperate to break. Throw in a growing secessionist movement in the fringe-colonies and the Federation had its hands full. So someone had a brilliant idea of abducting a species from another universe and taming it. Claire was adamant that was a stupid idea. Even the success of grabbing a Broodmother and knocking her out before she could do anything didn't improve her mood. The battery of experiments performed on Nox before she woke up and after only cemented her opinion. The little of the Zerg that they had seen convinced Claire that they could very well take the war directly into the Bug-tunnels and possibly even win. Except that there was no guarantees that they would remain under their control! The Zerg were nature's fury made real and you can't control nature!

A loud shrill beeping interrupted her thoughts. She glanced at her data-pad and rolled her eyes. Of course Doctor Dolohov wants to see her now. The head of the research facility was an absolute genius, having two different doctorates, but man he was an arrogant ass! Granted he did have the right after accomplishing something that everyone said was impossible, but if she heard one more time about how great he was she just might do something horrifically violent.

In quick time, she made it across the station to Dolohov's office. She knocked on the door before entering. "Doctor Dolohov, you wanted to see me?" She asked. Dolohov gestured for her to sit down. "Thank you for seeing me Claire." Claire bit the inside of her mouth to hide her anger at his stubborn refusal to use the title that she had damn well earned.

"No orders have been cut for you. You're to go to Mars and help with Navel R&D." Dolohov said. Claire couldn't help but cringe internally from his voice. He probably thought it was silk-like and pleasing to hear, only thing Claire heard was strings of oil being stretched out.

"Are you sure Doctor? I think I can be better use to the Federation here. I think I'm making headway in making sure that the Zerg can't rebel."

"You've been warning about that for sometime. We have everything under control, and even if something happens we have an entire company of MI here to cleanse the area. We'll be fine."

"Doctor, Nox is smart. Incredibly smart. She learns at impressive speeds. Please listen to me-"

Dolohov cut her off with a chopping motion. "Enough! I have heard enough from you about this. That thing is a bug and will be treated as such. We can handle ourselves. Soon you'll see Zerg armies wiping those damn Bugs out. The stalemate will be over and Humanity will own the stars."

Claire opened her mouth to argue more, but closed it when she saw an open file on his desk. Is that? It couldn't be. Even upside she could recognize her own work. It's the blueprints for a psi-disrupter! Claire didn't say anything. Perhaps he was only looking over the work before he gave it the okay. She can understand that. They only had so many resources after all. Claire bit the inside of her cheek and threw tact and diplomacy to the wind.

"My name is still apart of this project right? I know I was new here but I think I helped out alot. A little recognition would be nice."

Dolohov laughed. "Yes yes, your name will be known once we go public. Did you know that even after all of this time there are still people who doubt this project?"

_I can't imagine why._ Claire thought.

"You'll be up for awards and everything once we take the war to the Bugs with our own bugs. I promise that we won't use any more of your own work without your permission."

_He's lying_ A voice said. Claire blinked and missed whatever Dolohov was saying next. _He wants you gone. He hates you. Doesn't respect you._ The voice kept whispering and repeating the same things over and over. Maybe change one or two words but the message was the same. Claire rubbed her eyes and looked at Dolohov. His mouth moved, but the words didn't match the tone. Empty platitudes. Lies. Anytime she tried to think otherwise, a sharp pain would hit her. It felt like a spike being driven into her mind.

Hatred burned through her. Once Dolohov stopped talking, she thanked and stormed out of his office without a backwards glance. The voices kept echoing throughout her head as she stumbled to her room and crashed onto her bed with the grace of a collapsing building. Claire called out sick and stayed in bed for the better part of a week.

Even asleep the voices didn't stop. They just kept repeating themselves over and over day or night until one day Claire kicked the sheets off and rolled out of bed. The voice. She recognized it. How could she have been so stupid! Not bothering with shoes, she ran out of her room and to Nox's holding cell. "Get out!" She barked at some scientist, who's name she never bothered to learn.

When he protested, Claire turned the full force of her furious manic gaze on him. He wisely decided to leave. "You! You've been talking to me telepathically!" Claire yelled at Nox.

+I have.+ Nox answered calmly.

"Why?"

+Because I want you to know the truth. I want you to know that no one save the Swarm wants you. The Swarm is here for you.+

Claire scoffed. "You don't know that. Just because everyone here is an arrogant asshole doesn't mean that I won't get the respect I've earned at Mars or something!"

+Do you really believe that?+

Claire paced back and forth. "Yes. Yes I have to believe that." She turned and looked at Nox. Nox, who's original name she never learned and helped remove anyways. Nox, the name she gave her randomly. She stared at the pupil-less golden eyes, the sharp angular face with the three horns sticking out her forehead. Nox's voice continued to echo throughout Claire's head, eventually drowning out all other thoughts.

"What could I possibly do in the Swarm? How do I know that I would stay myself?" Claire whispered.

+I have need of an evolution master. I can lead a brood. I am not strong enough to lead an entire Swarm. You will help me gain that strength+

Claire slowly walked towards Nox. "I will be strong? Respected?"

+The strongest. Respected. Feared.+ Nox said. Claire stood in front of Nox and stood on her toes and pulled Nox to eye level. "You promise?" She demanded.

+I promise+

Claire reached underneath Nox's head, and the collar beeped.

Sergeant Hector Khros grunted as he lifted the dumbell. He had just started lifting weights with his friend and fellow Sergeant Jamal McDonald when McDonald dropped the weight and stood up to go stare out the window.

"Something wrong?" Khros asked. McDonald shook his head. "Naw. Thought I saw something. Might have been a trick of the light." Khros nodded and went back to the weights. The door to the showers opened and out stepped frosty the snow-bitch. Mcgillicuddy was a fire-team leader and a corporal. She had earned the name from Khros because she turned him down numerous times and whatever sense of humor she had had been surgically removed as a child. All business that one.

He gave an internal shrug as he watched her walk past with him without a second glance. He admired the tank top and the way the shorts clung to her backside, especially with the slightly damp skin. He didn't care that she was married to some twit back on Earth. She'd fall for him one day. They all did. All he needed was a little patience.

He watched her leave with hungry eyes, until the door to the gym slid open and Mcgillicuddy and everyone else in the room could only stare in shock at the Hydralisk standing at the entrance to the gym. "What the fu-" Mcgillicuddy got out before the tri-clawed arms of the Hydralisk grabbed her and yanked her out of the gym. The door slammed shut and even through it they could hear her agonized shrieks that quickly tapered off into a gurgle. "What the fuck?" another infantryman asked. Khros didn't recognize him, but that didn't matter. "Hit the fucking alarm idiot!" He shouted. The man jumped and ran over to the wall and hit the red button. Immediately all over the station alarms shrieked and Khros began to think of a way to get to the armory. Before either he or McDonald could give any orders, the door opened again and the dog-things bounded into the room. He watched as the wings on their back twitched and they just jumped and almost reached the ceiling. Khros beamed the dumbell at one in mid-jump and celebrated when it hit the dog-thing in the face.

"Fucking Zerglings are fast!" McDonald shouted. So that's what the dog things are called. Khros knew about the Hydralisk because that thing looked impressive as all hell. The Zerglings? Not so much.

Now Khros and the others were getting a first hand lesson on why he was wrong. The people in the gym grabbed whatever they could use as improvised weapons and set at the Zerglings. For dog-sized things they were freaking fast. Lasing out with either the shorter talons on the front limbs, or the longer set on their back. Almost immediately several men went down, either gutted or cut into several pieces. The lucky ones died quickly. Bashing the Zerglings with gym equipment didn't do anything except piss them off. "Jamal! By me some time!" Khros shouted. He grabbed a bar and began to swing it at the window. It took several minutes, but he managed to break the plexi-glass and Khros yelled out for everyone to hold their breath. The window shattered and Khros dived out the window and rolled. He ran back to the window and started yanking everyone that was close by and that could be helped.

Mcdonald tossed another infantryman through the window and dived afterwords, they only had a couple more seconds before the metal plates slammed shut and sealed everyone inside with the Zerg. He managed to grab one guy my his arm, but the Zergling limbs grabbed onto him and yanked him back into the gym.. The plates slammed down, sealing the room. Khros punched it once before leading everyone to an airlock. At least twenty people in the gym, and only six people including him had made it out.

Lungs burning, they only just made it into the airlock and waited for it cycle them through. As soon as the room was pressurized, he gulped down several lungfuls of air. He wasn't the only one. This dead-world had an absurd amount of carbon-dioxide in the air, and nowhere near enough oxygen for humans.

The airlock doors opened and Khros grimaced. The hallway was littered with blood and pieces of people. Just like the aftermath of a Bug attack. The lights on the ceiling flickered and Khros heard screaming and the roaring and snarling of the Zerg. "Come on. Let's get to armory and show these fucking bugs who they fucked with."

The men cheered and they broke into a run, thankfully not running into anything other then a couple more corpses and pieces of corpses. Once inside the armory, Khros and the others ran into their respective lockers and began threw on their skin suits followed by the power armor. A quick radio-check and Khros called out over the radio. "This is Wildcat-1, anyone read? Say again this is Wildcat-1 does anyone read?"

"Wildcat this Wildcat Lead. We read you. The station is lost already. Fall back to the shuttle-bay. Grab everyone you can. We leave in 90 minutes. I say again, we're leaving in 90 minutes. You're not at the shuttle bay by then, you're gonna be left behind."

"Understood Wildcat Lead. Wildcat-1 out." Khros''s helmet snapped into place and he nodded. "Alright boys, you heard the Major. Lets get the fuck out of here! Heads on a swivel, shoot anything that doesn't walk on two legs."

"Hector, how could the station have fallen so quickly? Didn't we run all of those drills for this shit?" Mcdonald asked.

"Fuck if I know brother. Maybe they underestimated the number of Zerg that they made. Wouldn't be the first time that someone fucked up like that."

Heavy boot falls echoed throughout the hallway as they ran towards the shuttle bay. Along the way, the radio echoed with the sounds of squads being cut off and over run and people begging for help. The only good news came when another squad joined theirs. The fact that it had a baby-faced lieutenant didn't bother Khros all that much.

"Sir, do you know what happened?" Khros asked as the lieutenant ran ahead of him. "Not really no. All I heard before I went on patrol was that the Broodmother got loose somehow and killed the Major and wrecked the command center. Then the bitch let her bugs out and they swarmed all over the station in minutes. Didn't know that there were so goddamn many of them!"

"The Major's dead?" Khros asked in shock. They paused at a four way intersection and the lieutenant paused to answer. "I think so yea. I think Captain Fuentes is now in charge. I'm sorry Sergeant, I don't really know what's going on with the chain. It's fucking chaos. It hasn't been that long since they attacked. Its like they knew where to go and who to kill."

"But abandoning the station so quickly Sir?" Mcdonald asked. The officer checked the hallway before motioning them on. "Wildcat Lead doesn't think that we can retake the place and we're not really equipped for that. We're going to leave this place and nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure. This Zerg shit can't leave this system."

They continued to run down the hallways until they reached the door to the shuttlebay. Even through the thick metal they could hear gunfire and the shrieks of the animals. The door opened to a scene of chaos and misery. Khros watched in horror as one infantryman took a chest full of spikes from a Hydralisk and dropped. A barricade of sorts had been formed in front of the shuttle and MI manned it, shooting everything that moved. Piles of dead Zerg lay in front of the makeshift barricade. It wasn't one sided for the MI however, here and there lay a butchered human. Some scientists, others wearing the armor of the Mobile Infantry. "Lets go!" Officer baby-face yelled. They sprinted and took advantage of their power armor to jump multiple meters into the air and land behind the barricade. "So glad you can join us!" Someone shouted.

"Yea right, like I'd let you leave me here!" Khros shouted back as he jumped up and opened fire, shredding a zergling. With discipline and skill, the MI kept up a steady volume of fire, killing any Zerg that popped its ugly head up. They staggered their fire, so as not to end up reloading all at the same time.

A few people managed to join them, including some more MI. The next group wasn't so lucky. Perhaps the Zerg were learning because they blundered right into an ambush. Some of the Zerglings were playing dead until they got close. Then with frightening speed they jumped up and grabbed the would be survivors. Khros could only watch as they shrieked and were quickly turned into dismantled piles of flesh. The Zerglings didn't get to enjoy their kills, as Khros and the others opened fire on them and killed them all.

Yet Khros and the others failed to notice the Defiler slinking its way through the bodies. Anytime it felt like it was being watched it would still and wait. Slowly but surely it inched its way forward, until it was close enough. Then it launched its attack.

Khros could only shout in horror as an orange cloud suddenly erupted in the middle of the barricade. At once, the disciplined force of the Federation was turned into a shrieking mess as whatever was in the cloud started to dissolve as the acid ate its way through their armor and eventually their skin.

One MI broke his helmet trying to open it as he vomited up blood as the acid and carcinogens tore his body to pieces. The men and women caught at the center of the cloud died quickly, but it wasn't painless. At the edge of the cloud, they survived with burns and the beginnings of different cancers but that wasn't the worst part. The center of the barricade had broken and the Zerg slammed their way through it. The few survivors fell as they were torn to pieces, their agonized shrieks mixing with the roars and shrieks of the Zerg. "Oh fuck this! Into the shuttle now!" The Lieutenant yelled. Khros turned but he didn't get far. The officer took several steps before dozens of spikes slammed into his chest and face, and he dropped. Dead before he hit the ground. Coming from behind came more Zerg!

At once Khros figured it out. While these fuckers kept them distracted here, they simply went around outside. If humans could hold their breath long enough to do that, why couldn't they? Khros screamed in pain as a Zerglings jaw closed around his leg. He pointed his rifle at it and pulled the trigger. What passed for its face and brain was blasted to pieces. Hopping to one leg, he yelled in despair as he saw several Zerg bound up the ramp to the shuttle. Mcdonald turned to him, but whatever he was going to say was lost when a Hydralisk looked up behind him and sunk its talons into his back.

"JAMAL!" Khros shouted. The Hydralisk tossed his friends corpse aside and advanced on him. He opened fire. The Hydralisks came apart and he roared in victory. His victory was cut short however, when two more hydralisks turned their attention to him. He yelled out, daring them to come after him as he sprayed bullets at them. The sounds of the fighting in the bay filled his ears until one sound cut through it all.

_Click. _

Khros could only stare in horror at ihs now empty rifle. He didn't have time to reload. The hydralisks fell on him.

_My first ever crossover fic. I hope you all enjoyed and as always, please review. _

_-C.H._


	2. Chapter 2

Claire watched the carnage play out over the security cameras in what was left of the command center. After releasing Nox, they both had made a beeline straight for the center and Nox had literally torn everyone in it to pieces. Luck would have it that the Major was in there as well and he was the first to die. From there it was a simple matter of opening the cells and letting the Zerg run rampant across the entire base; slaughtering all in their path. Claire should have felt something about this betrayal, but every time her thoughts ran in that direction, another voice would seem to enter her mind and steer her thoughts away from anything that might have resembled guilt. Claire spotted some movement on one of the cameras and cursed under her breath. As it turns out, the MI did actually listen to her frequent warnings and had rewired the base so that there was at least one alarm button thing in almost every section of the base.

Thanks to that, they managed to gear up and fight. Or at least tried to. Despite the constant drills and preparation, the scientists and the military could not conceive of the idea of someone betraying them to the Zerg and helping them slaughter their fellow humans. That these aliens would have inside knowledge on where to go and who to target. That they would know where the sleeping quarters were and be able to kill a good number of people either in the showers or their beds.

Once the hanger bay finally fell, it now became a matter of looking for the remaining isolated groups and dealing with them. Such as this group here, sprinting through the halls with the infantryman in the lead. The original plan for evacuation was for everyone to fall back to the hanger and take the emergency shuttles and leave the place. Probably nuke the base from orbit. Nox and Claire had solved that issue by ordering small groups to attack the retreating humans and isolate them. Those that survived would run to the hanger, where the bulk of the Zerg were fighting. While a group attacked from the front, another one went around and attacked from behind. They had lost a lot of Zerg to the tenacious defense that the MI had put up, but eventually they had fallen and been slaughtered to the man.

Claire had then convinced Nox to leave the shuttles alone and then directed them to spread out. With all of this in mind, Claire watched as the group sprinted towards what they hoped was safety. Perhaps they intended to wait it out and escape when the ship arrived for the resupply. That would not do. Shoving aside the diced up remains of someone, she quickly keyed up the intercom and dialed it as low as it could go and spoke into the mic.

"Any survivors this is Doctor Claire! I'm in command. It's clear but I don't know for how long! Please hurry!" With that she turned around and began shoving the few Zerg that were in the center out of the door. "Hide! Quick!" She tried to push the hydralisk out, but that was like trying to push a car with its emergency brake on. After a few choice insults about the parentage of the Zerg, they finally left. Claire caught the eye of the zerglings and directed it to hide just beyond the door and to listen. It wouldn't be able to understand everything that was being said, but it would be able to pass along anything it heard to Nox.

The Zerg left just in time because the doors slid open and three MI jumped in and quickly but professionally swept the room. Seeing only the good doctor they relaxed maybe a couple inches. The helmet of the lead trooper collapsed and he took a moment to wipe some blood out of his right eye. He quietly called out to the others and around a dozen or so people filed into the room.

"Doc. It's good to see you. Staff Sergeant Clemson. Are you the only survivor here?" He asked, his voice thick with stress and authority. "Yes I..I think so." Claire tried to insert the right amount of levity and fear into her voice, but she wasn't sure that she succeeded. Clemson didn't comment on it, so maybe she succeeded. Or maybe he just didn't care. "I'm in charge now. This shit is what we trained for; so I'm gonna need you to just stand aside and do as I say. Got it?"

Claire sketched a loose salute and moved out of the way, letting Clemson look at the monitors. She had never met the man, but appreciated the take charge attitude and a clear head on his shoulders. He might even be more likable then the late Khros. His death was over the top and brutal even by the standards of the Zerg. If someone ever came to check out the base after this, Claire doubted that they would find all of his body parts. The Hydralisks had spent several minutes just tearing him to pieces, and Claire had found herself turning up the volume to listen to his agonized screams.

A loud clatter brought her back to reality and derailed any chance of her thinking about her newfound sadism or the path her life was taking. She wasn't in the mood for the migraine that started coming with such thoughts. She needed to focus on the important things. Like acquiring research subjects.

"Er..Sergeant?" She asked quietly. Clemson rolled his shoulders and sighed. "You call me Staff Sergeant. That's my rank." He said kindly.

Claire gave a slight cough and corrected herself. "Staff Sergeant. What's the plan? I think we should we should wait for anyone else. We can't be the only ones!" She said, her voice rising in fear and anxiety. (She made a mental note to give herself a pat on the back for the acting.)

"That was the plan Doctor." Clemson said quietly. "But we can't. I have to get my boys out of here. The Zerg are on their way here. If we run into anyone we'll take them with. If not…." He trailed off and Claire nodded. A glance at the cameras showed that Clemson was correct. Dozens upon dozens of Zerg were blitzing their way to them. She looked around and shrugged. A dozen people. Not bad for the opening of her experiments. Clemson started barking orders and everyone fell into a loose formation. They were going to try and make it to the closest shuttle bay, the one that had seen the least amount of fighting. Claire was picked up and put on the back of one grunt and they took off running.

She would always deny that she had made any sort of undignified yelping noise when they took off running. None of the grunts had noticed the zergling slowly stroll into the room from one of the doors in the back. Clicking and snarling, it had heard everything and relayed the information to Nox and as it was supposed to. The four insect wings on its back buzzed and more Zerg poured into the room. All with a single command in their minds.

_After them!_

Nox ran her claws across the walls, enjoying the streaks of red that they left behind. Her claws and most of her upper torso were covered in human blood. Slaughtering the surprised humans had been wonderful. All this time after those humiliating experiments? Revenge was finally hers. She pulsed a thought and the hatcheries began producing more Zerg, creating more soldiers to replace the ones that were lost. The fallen were being dragged into the reclamation pools, to be food for the next group of warriors. Smooth. Efficient. If Nox could smile, she would.

The giant insectoid alien turned and one of her legs sunk into the skull of a human. She managed two steps before she realized she was stuck in the head of a human head with the upper half of the torso still attached to it. Bending down to remove the annoyance saved her life when a rifle barked and the wall shattered right where her head had been. Nox turned towards a small group of Mobile Infantry. Four of the little things. An amusing past time then. A spike was hurled towards the one with the oversized rifle and struck him right in the face with enough force to nail him to the wall behind him.

The others stared at him for a second then opened fire. Their smaller rifles couldn't break her skin, but they did hurt enough to bruise and Nox screeched in rage and fury. A few more spikes forced them to duck and stop shooting her. By the time they stuck their heads back up again, Nox was on them. They screamed and cursed in fear that something the size of Nox could move so quickly. They didn't get the chance to do anything else. She grabbed the first grunt around the neck and lifted him up, enjoying him struggling and kicking for a second before grabbing his legs. With a twist and pull, the poor man was pulled in half at the waist. Tossing both halfs aside, a vicious back hand decapitated the third one, leaving blood gushing from the neck-stump as the body took a second to process that it was dead. Screaming in fear and fury, the last human opened fire on full auto, succeeding in forcing Nox to take a couple steps back before she reached forward and slapped the rifle out of his hands. He grabbed a knife and lunged towards Nox.

Smacking his arm aside, Nox grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. She drew her arm back to disembowel the man when one of the zerglings that Nox had assigned to Claire snarled and thumped its front claws on the ground. Nox turned to it and stared at the small creature. After a second Nox nodded and thumped the human upside the head, knocking him out.

+Take him to the reclamation pool. Don't throw him in. Our evolution master needs materials for her research.+ Nox ordered. Nox dropped him as she made her way to the reclamation pool. Her evolution master needs work. A telepathic pulse echoed from her mind and she nodded to herself. Wouldn't do to have her liberator and evolution master to start doubting herself. No, that wouldn't do at all.

+Go. Find Claire. Do as she says.+ She ordered and her swarm scattered from the room, nothing on their minds except the order that they have been given.

Upon reaching the pool, Nox immediately got to work. Genetic manipulation wasn't her strength, but she had seen Zagara do it. She could figure it out. She would figure it out. Then this galaxy would learn to fear the might of the Zerg Swarm.

Claire didn't think riding piggy back would be a lot of fun, especially on the sprinting form of a fully armored Mobile Infantryman. Or rather, it might have been if she hadn't been holding onto the armor and trying really hard not to fall off. It wasn't designed for someone to ride on the back, an oversight that she thought should be addressed. _Thank God I wore pants today_ she thought as they turned the corner at a sprint. Thanks to the armor, they covered meters of ground easily and quickly, making it to the hanger in record time. They stopped and stared at the carnage. Blood and pieces of people were scattered everywhere, mixed in with the blasted and shot remains of the Zerg. The carnage was absolute and everywhere. They moved quickly through the remains, trying to avoid stepping on what was left of the people.

To the grunts vocal disgust, some of the bodies looked like they had been chewed on. Some bore the signs of being fed upon, while others bore signs of something chewing on them and then losing interest. The horror didn't stop when they reached the shuttle. Hanging from the wings and secured by some sort of resin were numerous bodies. Scientists, soldiers, even the janitors were all hanging. Every single person was thankfully dead and all were in various states of dismemberment. Some missing organs, others missing limbs. The damage went on. A horrific display set up for anyone that came to the shuttle would see.

"Doc...even the bugs don't set up shit like this...What the fuck is this shit? You're the expert." One person asked. She didn't know his name and didn't care enough to ask.

Claire shook her head. "I don't know. They never displayed this level of sadism in the pens. There's no record of them doing this." Despite herself Claire was fascinated by the display. Brutal and terrifying, Claire wondered if the point was to break the morale of anyone who found it. Glancing around, she saw that it was working. Most people were displaying varying levels of shock and one or two were vomiting.

"We can't do anything for them and don't have the time. Into the shuttle. Resupply will be here in a couple weeks and we will get picked up and then fucking nuke this place to hell. Got it?" Clemson growled. He turned to go up the ramp and stopped because staring at him from the top of the shuttle was a zergling! The zergling opened its fang filled mouth and snarled at him. Wings flaring it opened its mouth even wider and roared. At once the doors to the hanger tore open as Zerg flooded into the hanger, running over the dead regardless of the species.

Claire was shoved into the center of a circle as the infantrymen formed a loose circle.

"Why aren't they attacking us?!" Someone yelled. "Shut the fuck up! Just form up! We're still getting out of here!" Someone yelled back. Everywhere in the hanger there were Zerg. Several had climbed on the shuttle and looked down on them, snarling and flexing their claws. Eager to rend flesh and bone. The cacophony filled the hanger bay as hundreds of stampeding creatures snarled and roared and ran in circles around the humans. The humans shouted taunts and curses as they looked for a way to survive.

"STOOOP!" A voice roared. The Zerg slammed to a stop and didn't move. Hell, they didn't even blink. If one didn't know better, they might be looking at a room full of alien insectoid statues. It was terrifying. Hundreds of barely blinking eyes stared at the humans. Claire pushed her way through the grunts and walked towards the Zerg. "Doc." Clemson said, reaching out to her. Claire easily sidestepped his outreached hand and gently petted the closest hydralisk on the jaw. The creature purred and leaned into the touch.

"Doc!" A little louder. More insistent. Claire rolled her eyes and turned to the humans. Her former species. "Take them alive. Get the remains and take them to the pools. We're going to need an army." Claire ordered.

Clemson roared in fury and brought up his rifle, fully intend ending to kill the traitorous bitch. To his immense surprise the hydralisk that she had been petting shoved itself in front of her, blocking any shot that he could make.

"You could pull that trigger and possibly kill me." Claire said from behind the hydralisk. "If you do, know that every single person in here is going to die horribly. Or you could drop your weapons and surrender. Choose quickly."

The Zerg snarled and leaned forward as one, each one eager to leap and tear. A loud clatter had everyone jump. One of them had dropped his rifle. His helmet unfolded a tear soaked face of some blond kid, barely eighteen years old was revealed to the world.

"We can't fight this Staff Sergeant. We're beaten." He sniffled. One by one the others started dropped their weapons. Clemson was the last, only dropping his after getting a pointed look from one of the other grunts.

"Armor too." Claire said and got looks of hatred and loathing from all of them. The Zerg snarled and they quickly dropped their amor. Prodded by the Zerg, they made their way to the main hatcheries.

"Why?" Clemson asked.

"Why what?" Claire responded, more interested in the movements of the Zerg. So much easier to study them when there wasn't a barrier in the way. "Why betray us? You're human!"

Claire shrugged. "That last part is debatable. I did it because I wanted respect. I practically ran this project. None of you gave me the time of day unless you needed something. It took this place being overran before I was given the respect that I had earned." She paused and took a breath as her mind raced. "They accepted me right from the start. A member of the swarm. Free to run my experiments with no one telling me what I can and can't do. No more kissing ass of some old fuck stuck in his ways. I will bring change. I will chase after perfection and no one will stop me. Not you, not the Federation or my parents of some backwater planet of ignorant rubes!"

She rounded on Clemson and advanced on him. Her eyes wide and she enjoyed the way that he started to back up until his back hit the wall. "I will be apart of something. Something that will never end. The swarm is unending. And soon I will be too, and everyone will see what I can really do."

"You're insane!" Clemson snapped.

Claire rolled her eyes. "Not the first time that I have heard that." She turned and walked away. "I have to see Nox. Don't let them out of your sight for even a second. They try anything, kill them." Claire walked off, surprised at the fact that she had believed everything she had said. She was furious about the lack of respect, but she was far more concerned with the paths that had suddenly opened to her. No board of ethics, no judgments or anything to tell her that whatever she was doing was wrong. Entire avenues of science were open to her now! Where would she start?

Claire found Nox in front of the largest pool. "What are you doing?" Claire asked. +I have adjusted this pool. Infused with essense it will turn you into a Zerg. You will truly become our evolution master. Will you?+ Nox stopped talking as Claire had stripped herself of every article of clothing that she wore and walked confidently into the pool. Immediately her skin prickled and hurt as the microorganisms began to enter her body. Claire didn't react as the folds of a chrysalis slowly emerged from the liquid and started to surround her. She turned and stared at Nox until she was completely covered.

Clemson couldn't believe what had happened. Twelve years in the military and he thought that he had seen just about every act of human stupidity out there. Then this doctor had proved him wrong! Allying with an alien against humanity and the Federation was bad enough, but doing with these new bugs?! Clemson didn't want to admit it, even to himself but the manic look on her face when she had explained her reasons for betraying the Federation had scared him. Clemson banished all thoughts of the lunatic and focused on making sure that his people were alright.

The Zerg had cleared out an area far enough away that they could use for the bathroom and not worry about getting sick. Food was taken from the mess hall and dumped at their feet. They didn't know what was or wasn't edible for humans, so the Zerg compensated for this by taking everything that wasn't nailed down and seeing if the humans ate it or not. Every once in awhile someone would be dropped off, usually injured. For some reason they seemed big on taking prisoners. So far, only one person had died and that had been because she had lost a leg and they couldn't do anything about the shock or the infection that surely followed.

Clemson was even surprised that so far the biggest problem seemed to be fighting boredom and the inevitable stench from not bathing after several days. He had already had broken up a couple fights as the boredom and stress of being prisoners was starting to get to them.

He didn't know how long it had been, several days if not a week at least. All they had to do was last until the resupply came and then they could escape. Alright so his plan had several missing steps but hey at least he had the beginning of a plan! Clemson was getting ready to explain the start of a plan when the Zerg watching them stilled. They turned their eyes away from the prisoners to somewhere else in the base and began to trill and snarl. If Clemson didn't know better, he would say that they were celebrating something.

The Zerg suddenly descended on the prisoners. Shocked screams and howls echoed out as they thought that their time had finally come. Yet it was not to be so. Driven by nips and the occasional scratch, a small group of about five people including Clemson were driven from the rest of the prisoners and were rushed down a hall.

"The Reclamation pool." Someone said. "What?" Clemson asked, turning towards the voice. "Mike. One of the engineers. I helped maintain this room. It's the biggest reclamation pool on the base." Mike the engineer answered.

Clemson frowned and looked at the pool. Fleshy outgrowths ringed the edge of the pool. The amount of the green liquid had clearly dropped, as the bodies of humans and zerg were visibly floating. Clemson blanched at the sight. Then his eyes were drawn to the massive chrysalis that was in the center of the pool. It was broken open, with some liquid slowly draining out of it and into the pool. What could have come from that thing? Clemson got his answer faster then he could have ever have wanted.

It revealed itself from behind one of the lairs. The lower half was entirely serpentine, purple-black and at least eight meters in length. The upper half was humanoid, with six arms three on each side ending in wicked looking talons. Five fingers on each hand, Clemson trailed his eyes up the body and the flat stomach and modest chest that seemed to be covered in some kind of armor and moved with the body. The shoulder length hair was orange-red and sticking out in every direction. Four snake-like tendrils emerged from her head and waved around, as if tasting the air. Occasionally a long barbed like stinger would emerge from the tendrils. Its face is what truly stunned Clemson and caused him to drop his jaw in shock. The face looked human, with lips and eyes and everything else that made a face. The purple-black scales couldn't change the shape or disguise the face.

"_Doc Claire?!" _He shouted in disbelief.

Claire turned and stared at him. "Clemson. You'll do to start." She slithered over to him and raised herself up enough to tower over the man. One of her upper arms grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off of the ground. He kicked and struggled and grabbed her hand, trying to pull them off of his throat. He might as well have been trying to bend metal for all the good that it did. Another arm lifted up some sort of worm thing. She brought it close to his face and he closed his mouth and turned his head away, refusing to allow that thing to be close to him.

He didn't know what that purple palm sized worm was, he just knew that it couldn't be good. He felt the steel like fingers tighten around his throat until his vision started to blur. His struggles weakened until he thought that he was finally going to die, only for their grip to suddenly loosen. His oxygen starved brain immediately demanded that he open his mouth and start breathing. Only too late did he realize the mistake.

The worm slammed into his open mouth and Clemson gagged as it worked its way down his throat. Eyes wide with terror he couldn't fight what was happening. He tried to reach for it, but Claire blocked his hands and held them out. Only dropping him when the worm had forced its way completely inside him. With an utterly impassive face, Claire dropped him.

"What the fuck did you do to me?!" Clemson roared. He tried to stand and but the room swam and he collapsed and curled up into the fetal position. His body felt like it was on fire and agony ripped through him. Clemson thrashed about on the ground as he felt his bones break and then force themselves through his skin. Blood fountained and Clemson screamed as his skull distended and then returned to its original shape. His skin hardened and looked like it was trying to form some sort of armor. His bones broke more and then reformed into spikes that shoved themselves through the newly formed armor and skin. Clemson continued to thrash as his body broke itself apart and tried to rebuild itself. His screams ended as he started coughing up blood as his vocal cords and lungs broke with the rest of his body. At last he stilled, finally dead. Claire prodded the broken body and muttered under her breath.

"First experiment a failure. Attempt at creating a new and better infested warrior did not work to well. I need to get better at spinning sequences." She turned and looked at the other cowering prisoners. "Lucky for me there are at least thirty other subjects. Time to get started." She reached forward and dragged a human female into the air by her leg, knocking the others off as they tried to stop her from being taken. Claire grabbed another larva and smiled. Considering that her mouth was filled with terribly sharp and pointed fangs, it only served to terrify the human even more.

Claire raised the new larva, this one with a slightly different gene sequence. "Lets see how this goes."

Nox watched impassively from behind Claire. Her evolution master had settled into her role quickly and easily. It had surprised Nox how quickly Claire had gotten the hang of spinning gene sequences. Given time she would surpass Nox in leaps and bounds. That was fine. She had her primary role and so did Nox.

Nox directed the larva near the hives to begin producing more. Upon awakening Claire had told her about the ship that brought supplies to this outpost. They were going to steal that ship and begin growing the swarm. They just needed more resources to do so. A fresh planet to ravage. They would find one.

And the galaxy would tremble.

_Hope you all enjoyed. The Zerg setting up their macabre display was influenced by them doing the same thing in Liberty's Crusade in Mar Sahara. _

_-C.H._


	3. Chapter 3

Claire sighed. For all of her work over the past couple weeks, they hadn't yielded anything substantial. Oh sure, the microorganisms were more virulent than ever, but there was only so much that she could do on a dead world. She was on her last subjects and they were running out of resources. The minerals and gasses that they had harvested were either long since depleted or about to be depleted. Claire snarled and turned, her ever loyal zergling bounding along next to her. Claire slithered down the hallway and called out for Nox. She found her at the reclamation pool. "Nox! We need to leave this place." Nox turned to her and gave her a calm look. +We do indeed. And you have a plan+

Claire smiled.

Warrant officer Lucas Bright the fat barge towards the dead world. His copilot helped when needed, but mostly focused on trying to raise anyone at the base. She wasn't having any luck. Bad enough that they were late because of a malfunction in the FTL drive and then came the sudden call back to pick up some grunts. Bright didn't know what was going on at this super secret base in the ass end of nowhere, but he didn't get paid to ask or care. He had his job and he was damn good at it. He had spent more than twenty years as a pilot in the Federation navy. This cargo hauler was just another in a long line of cargo haulers Easy deliveries and no one was trying to kill him. What more could a man want? His copilot, an old battle ax named Mary Zine scowled at the instruments in front of her.

"Still no response. This isn't like them." She said. Bright frowned. Zine had a point. Unusually for bases in the middle of nowhere, theses guys were prompt and they never slacked. "Maybe they finally slipped up." Bright said, not believing his own words. Bright hadn't reached that middling age of fifty by taking stupid and unecessary risks. He thumbed the intercom. "No response from the boys dirtside. I advise y'all to gear up for a fight." He said calmly. With that, he thumbed off the intercom and began to nose the ungainly beast of a ship into what passed for an atmosphere. A mousy first lieutenant poked her head onto the bridge. "Keep the engines hot. If something did happen down there, take off as quickly as you can." She said.

"What about you guys?" Bright asked. The mousey lieutenant frowned. "We'll handle ourselves. I'll leave a squad to guard you and the ship." Bright nodded his thanks and waited until the infantry woman had left before he murmured "Poor bloody infantry." Zine noddd. There were clear and cogent reasons why neither of them had joined the Mobile Infantry.

Thrusters firing and with expert hands Bright brought the ship into a smooth landing. The lights in the hangar were off. Did they abandon the place and just not tell anyone? It was possible. The Federation military was a massive organization. Totally possible that someone made a decision and didn't tell anyone. Or the message just got lost. Right?

Light chatter came over the radio and Zine looked at him and shrugged. The grunts had departed the ship and had spread out, keeping each other in sight as they looked through the base. They didn't find anything at first. Then one of the infantrymen called out that they had found bullet holes in the walls and the ceiling. What looked like spikes were embedded in the walls along with rust color splashes that could only be blood. Holes were found scattered about, as if something acidic had eaten through the metal. A hastily made barricade had been smashed aside. Bright had kept the engines hot, but otherwise hadn't done anything else. Now he grabbed the controls and Zine did as well.

Something terrible had happened here. Despite what the mousy lieutenant had said, he wasn't going to leave his fellow servicemen and women behind if he could help it. Even if they were a bunch of dumb grunts. A loud clatter echoed behind him. Shortly followed by several more. No one responded when he demanded to know what that was. "I don't like this." The mousy lieutenant said. "Everyone stick together. Squad five, how's our exit?"

Silence answered her.

"Squad five." A slight increase in pitch betrayed her nervousness. "Squad five, respond now. Jenkins I swear to God if you're asleep I will fucking light your ass up." Still silence answered her and Bright could easily hear his and Zine's breathing as they tried to keep calm. "Squad five!" Bright could feel the anxiety and nerves bleeding out on the comms. "Everyone back to the ship! Now!"

"Zine lock that door now!" Bright barked. He should have done that in the first place. They may have been pilots, and be masters of their craft, but they completely lacked the experience from dealing with actively hostile enemies. Dangers of space? Sure. Drunk crewmembers or broken cargo? Absolutely. They have never even met the bugs! Zine didn't get a chance to lock the door. The sensors read a body on the other side of the door. It didn't matter that it wasn't human. The sensors detected a heat source and opened for it. The door slid open and Bright and Zine started a snarling dog-thing. It had two limbs on its back that had wicked looking talons at the ends of them. It's smaller claws thumped the ground and it opened its mouth and snarled at them.

Zine brought up her pistol and aimed it at the creature. She didn't get a chance to fire. The two talon limbs on its back snapped forward and slammed into her chest, impaling her. Zine gave a gurgling shriek as blood fountained from her chest and mouth. The creature yanked her forward and gutted her with its lower limbs. Tossing aside Zine's body, the creature stepped over and advanced on Bright, snarling. Moving slowly, Bright unclasped his pistol and then dropped it on the ground. He raised his hands in the universal "I surrender" and to his surprise the creature stilled and stared at him with malice filled eyes.

Behind him, the radio squawked and came to life with the roar of gunshots and screaming. Voices screamed over the radio. "It's an ambush!"

"Where's the ma'am?!"

"Fucking dead! This black bug spat acid at her!"

"Fuck this! Get back to the ship or we're dead!"

Whatever else was said was lost in the screams and gunfire and the shrieking roars of whatever those creatures were. After several minutes the creature started snapping at his heels and hearding him away from the bridge. Bright hurried out of the ship as fast as he could and vomited at the sight of squad five. They had been torn to pieces. Didn't even get to fire a shot. Bright slammed to a stop at the sight of some multi armed snake woman and the dog-creature snapped at the back of his legs. It drew blood and Bright stumbled into a walk as the creature drew blood and he shuffled towards the snake woman. Bright would always be proud of the fact that he didn't piss himself when she smiled at him.

Claire slowly slithered over to the quaking pilot. He wasn't particularly attractive or looked that smart. Brown hair streaked with grey with a closely shaven beard with grey streaks in it. All together he had a sort of craggly look to him. Claire slowly wove herself around him, placing one hand on his shoulder with another caressing his chest. "Let's talk. My name is Claire. My Zerg and I need a way off this world. And look at that. Here you are."

"What's in it for me?" The pilot asked, trying to stare her down. She gave him points for attempting to be brave, seeing as he was obviously completely out of his element. "Why, your life of course. I can figure out how to fly this thing myself, but that'll take awhile. Better you fly it for us, and nothing happens to you." Claire thought for a second. "Nothing terrible or fatal." Claire coiled herself tighter around the pilot and hovered over him. She nearly laughed when his eyes darted to her chest and then right back to her face.

Men. She thought fondly with some amusement.

"Do you accept these terms?" Claire asked.

The pilot glanced at the Zerg around him, all of them which looked eager to leap at him and tear him to pieces. The pilot jerked his head shakily and stuttered a yes. "Good." Claire pecked him on the cheek and dispatched a couple zerglings to keep and eye on him. As she unwound herself from him, she stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. "By the way, if you try anything at all you will die screaming. Remember that." Bright nodded. He believed her.

Under Claire's watchful eyes, the zerg snapped the straps on many of the cargo and started tossing them out of the ship. Anything that could be devoured by the swarm was kept. Organic materials and some types of metal. Claire got another chuckled when the pilot (who's name she discovered was Bright.) got one look at Nox and tried to hide behind Claire with a whimper. Nox for her part completely ignored the human. It was going to be a tight fit. Every single living zerg was crammed into the ship, filling every possible spot and even a couple impossible ones. Bright had complained about that, stating that all of the additional weight would make it difficult to break orbit. He shut up when Claire pointed out that if anyone could figure out what to do, it would be him. And if he failed, then she would take her frustrations out on him.

Leaving Nox to cram all of the living zerg onto the ship, Claire made her way to the generator in the center of the base. +Claire. It is time we left.+ Nox said. "One moment. Cleaning up any evidence." Claire responded, both telepathically and vocally. Yes she could speak with her mind, but decades of speaking with her voice had left her with habits that she wasn't all that willing to break. Even as a zerg. It took Claire several minutes to override the numerous safety protocols before the generator could be set to overload. Claire smiled in triumph. Which promptly blew out like a burnt out light bulb when the lights went red and an alarm sounded. An electronic voice warbled and announced that the base would be destroyed in twenty minutes. Grabbing the ever present zergling at her side and cradling him, she rocketed down the hallways at speeds that she didn't know that she could reach.

If anyone could have seen her, they would have seen a purple-black blur practically flying down the hallways. She launched herself into the ship and barely got her tail inside before the ramp slammed shut. Forcing her way through the cramped ship, she dropped the zergling and forced herself onto the bridge. Claire watched as a grim-faced Bright sent the ungainly ship flying. A few minutes later a star was born on the planet. The ship was buffeted by the shockwaves as the light filled the bridge. Bright fought to keep the ship level as seconds later the star died, leaving behind only blackened glass.

"So uh...where are we going?"Bright asked nervously. Claire grumbled as she tried to make herself more comfortable. "Haley's Hope." She answered after a moment. "Haley's Hope? But that's in the middle of nowhere!" Claire gave Bright a pointed look and he nodded and cleared his throat. "Right. To Haley's Hope." Spending a couple minutes plotting out the course, Claire watched impassively as the ship started to glow and slipped into FTL.

Haleys Hope looked gorgeous. Primarily land, with a few ocean sized lakes. Light golden brown plains with endless green forests, it truly was one of the agricultural jewels of the far flung colony worlds. The poles had several massive mountain chains, capped with snow. The four ocean sized lakes were a dark blue, bordering on black at the right angle. Kilometers of forests stretched out as far as the eye could see.

Claire was blind to the beauty. "Take us to these coordinates." Claire ordered. Her choice of a landing zone was the tail end of mountain chain in the southern hemisphere. It brushed up against a thickly settled forest. Bright gave the okay and began to guide the ship towards the selected destination. He didn't radio in or acknowledge that he was entering the planetary atmosphere. On a more populated planet, this would set off dozens of alarms across the planet. On a sleepy world like Haley's Hope, it didn't even register.

Once Claire turned away to talk to Nox, Bright immediately toggled the button for locator beacon on and off for several seconds. The universal symbol for an emergency, if anyone was watching Bright would have some kind of backup waiting for him on the ground. Bright didn't want to die, but he had to do something to give others a chance and hopefully keep his precious self intact and alive. He was determined that someone would get a warning about these freaks and be able to do something about them.

So intent on getting a warning out, he didn't notice the zergling staring intently at him or Claire's stiffening back. Thrusters firing, Bright as usual expertly brought the ungainly vehicle to a landing. The ramp had barely lowered when the zerg stampeded out and into the forest with Nox in the lead. Bright gave a nervous cough and looked at Claire as they both left the ship. "So that's that right? Y'all are good? I'm good to leave?" he asked with a nervous twitch. Claire turned and looked down at him. Faster than the human eye could see let alone process, Claire had a hand around Bright's throat and was lifting him clear off of the ground.

"Remember when I said that if you tried anything, that you would die screaming?" Claire's grip on his throat tightened and Bright gave a rasping cough as he tried to breath. "Trying to get a message out by toggling the fucking locator counts as something. Die screaming." Claire snarled.

Bright tried to pull Claire's fingers off of his throat, but like so many before he failed. Bright kicked and started to scream as his body started to break and tear itself apart. His body burned and he screamed until his lungs broke and blood filled his throat and mouth. Claire dropped him and watched as the infestation took over and remade him. True to her word, Lucas Bright died screaming. The last thoughts to enter his head was that at least someone got his warning, and that they would know that these monsters existed.

Except that they didn't. On a more active world, someone certainly would have noticed Bright's emergency call. On this sleepy little world, where nothing ever happened, only had one person on watch on the one major star port and they were fast asleep in the middle of their shift. They had missed his warning. Bright had damned himself for nothing.

Claire turned from the newly infested Terran and slithered away, Bright shambling behind. One arm was grossly oversized with his fingers ending in talons. His head and neck had sunken into his chest cavity. Spikes had erupted from his left arm and a purple carapace had formed over some parts of his body. He gurgled until Claire had snapped at him to shut up. They found Nox inside a clearing deep in the forest. Already the first hatcheries were growing. Drones had been ordered to dig into the dirt and mountains to find minerals. The creep was starting to spread and a reclamation pool was being formed. Bushes and smaller trees were ripped out, roots and all and tossed into the pool. Local wildlife that was caught and slaughtered was also tossed in.

A few weeks later and the zerg struck gold in a figurative sense. A cache of Alastian gas was found and it turned out to be a pretty good substitute for vespene gas. As the creep spread, spore colonies and other buildings were rapidly grown. Within a month of landing, the original hive had doubled in size and a new broodlord was born. Named Nafash, she had quickly challenged Nox and had promptly gotten the living shit beaten out of her. Now firmly chastened, Nafash had taken several drones and left, setting up shop a few kilometers away. And thus the first brood was born and named Jourmangandr. Other broods would follow shortly.

If Nox could frown, she would. On the surface things looked good. New broods had been created, Jourmangandre, Kraken, Fenrir, Tiamat, Garm and Surtur. Surtur remained a serious problem. Created to be a shock army, a permanent problem solver, Claire had amped up the aggression levels of its broodmother Niadra and the other strains in that particular brood. Niadra then spawned many ultralisks and even more than a few torresques. On the surface Surtur was a great assault brood. It could do exactly as it was supposed to and that was shatter enemy lines and annihilate the enemy. The downside was that Surtur was so hideously aggressive that they slaughtered anyone in their path including allies.

Such a temper made forming strategies with Surtur brood difficult. Still, they would have their uses, provided of course that they were kept far away from the other broods. The main swarm under Nox's personal control was called Leviathan. A fitting name for the largest brood, or so thought Claire and Nox. Nox turned from what was left of the forest to overlook her swarm. She watched as Claire moved amongst her own swarm, called Tartarus. It was by far one of the smallest broods. Created exclusively to protect Claire, Nox didn't have a problem with giving someone just as strong or even stronger than her their own brood. Nox knew for a fact that Claire didn't want to be in charge. She wanted to run her experiments and create and be recognized for her genius. Fighting for the throne would get in the way of that.

Nox turned her head to look at the giant tumors that dotted the mountainside. They were unable to completely save the sequence for the moon size mother ships and as such Claire decided that it would be more efficient and easier to just design their own ships instead of trying to recover a lost sequence. Starting with smaller ships, what one would call frigates and destroyers Claire started to grow them in and on the mountains. Nox had originally demanded that larger ships be created, but Claire refused to do anything of the sort until the planet was firmly under their control. While this planet only had small arms to fight a small scale Arachnid invasion, humans always had been a notoriously resilient species and were liable to try anything.

Claire refused to do anything that would bring any kind of attention until they were ready. Better the resources go to tried and true methods before experimenting with new designs. Nox saw Claire's logic and agreed with her. Or at least agreed enough not to argue with her. Nox looked at the growing swarm, tens of thousands of zerg, waiting to go on the attack. Mutalisks and vipers flew through the air as overlords hovered around the hive clusters. It was time.

+Nafash. The southernmost city. Destroy it.+ Nox ordered.

+Yes my queen!+

Nox watched as in the distance, Jourmangandre brood began to move. The grey carapace visible even in the distance. +Nazara. Take your brood and wipeout the outlying settlements. No survivors. No one gives any warnings.+

+Yes my queen!+

Fenrir brood began to move. The grey-black carapace stampeded away. Lacking the heavy units of the other broods, Fenrir was a fast and excellent scouting force. Mutalisks, vipers and scourges took to the skies, furiously shrieking. The swarm was on the move.

Sarah was almost skipping down the street. She had finally gotten her thopter license! She tossed her apron into the first trash can that she found. No more shitty hours at Freckles, no more crap pay and pervs trying to grab her ass. A full pilot flying for the local rangers. Not even the other thopters disappearing further south worried her. At nineteen years old, the world was her oyster.

The ground suddenly shook and Sarah wasn't the only person who looked up in alarm. Ground quakes didn't happen here. The road splintered and cracked with an awful noise before suddenly falling silent. Sarah looked at in shock, wondering what could shatter the road so badly like that. People started to draw close to the intersection, trying to figure out what had just happened. With a thunderous roar, the intersection suddenly collapsed in a cloud of dust. Sarah jumped back with the others and screamed in surprise. The dust rose into the air and from the dust came this mammoth sized thing, with four blades swinging through the air. Roaring at the stunned people, they charged them. Sarah screamed as the blades swept through the unarmed people. Dozens of people fell, cut in half and scattered across the street. Sarah nearly vomited when what seemed like a puddle of blood landed directly on her face. The top half of the body slammed into a building with a sickening crunch. Chaos broke out as the stunned people broke and ran. The mammoth things stampeded through the crowds, blades flashing as they killed people by the dozens with each swing.

From underneath the hell-mammoths came these dog-things that had more teeth and claws then anything in nature could naturally need. Leaping farther and higher than they had any right to, they landed on people and tore them to pieces. More than one persons dying shrieks turned to gurgles as the talons and claws ripped them apart.

Panting, Sarah spirited away, not even bothering to scream anymore. Out of the corner of her, she saw these giant worm things erupt from the ground and more of the monsters come pouring out of its roaring mouth. Sarah almost started to scream again when this misshapen thing, the top half covered in bulbus tumors and looking almost like a deranged tusked person with the bottom half on four legs come charging out the worm and into the crowds, tossing people this way and that. A cruel mockery of a centaur. What could create something like that? Sarah nearly shrieked as a cop opened fire on it and was obviously annoyed by it, for it slapped the cop in the chest and sent him flying away, with his organs going one direction and his body going another. Sarah would have stopped and vomited if she wasn't so terrified.

Sarah followed the crowd and for a moment, she thought that she had successfully escaped the monsters. They were further behind her, slaughtering the people that were too slow to escape. For a precious moment, she stopped to catch her breath. Panting heavily, she doubled over and vomited. The days events slamming into her mind like some horrific movie on repeat. What had happened? Where had these things come from? Had the bugs made them? The last she heard was that Mars had fallen to the bugs, but that was a ways away! No kind of war of violence came to Haley's Hope!

Sarah's thoughts were interrupted by the ground splintering and shaking. "Oh no no please no." She moaned. She got ready to run, ignoring the cramps starting to form in her legs. Another giant worm thing roared from the ground and from its mouth spewed hundreds of the monsters. Sarah screamed as one purple thing rolled itself at freakish speeds and slammed into the crowd. The explosion of purple goo killed the people closest to it right away and they were the lucky ones. The furthest ones away got splashed by the purple liquid fell screaming as the acid ate its way through them. They died quickly, but screaming the whole while. Sarah ran faster. The crowd turned as they tried to escape from the monsters. An explosion of acid and gore on one street had the crowd turning down another. No one thought about where they were going, the only thing on their minds were getting away from these monsters. The crowd came to a stop and again Sarah tried to catch her breath.

They stood in one of the shopping plazas and none of the monsters seemed to be nearby. Sarah gave a hacking sob and wanted to collapse and cry. She wondered frantically about her parents. Were they safe? They had stayed at the farm while Sarah had elected to leave. She had to call them. "Jesus Christ they're here!" Someone screamed. Everyone started screaming and Sarah watched as the alien monsters poured into the plaza from every direction. It took a second but she figured it out. She had watched the dogs on the farm do the same thing while herding the sheep. They had been chased and guided into one area. Instead of a pen, it was a killing zone. These things could think. Sarah turned to run. There had to be a way out. An escape.

Sarah slammed into the ground. Why? Why did she do that? Why did she stop running? Did someone trip her? "Hey! Hey! Someone help me!"She called out. Why was no one helping her? She opened her mouth and blood poured from her mouth. She turned her head at a sharp whistling sound cut through the air above her prone form. The monsters ran past her, ignoring her. She watched as people fell by the dozens, some with spikes sticking out of them. Is that what hit me? She asked herself. Her vision started to blur and she started to feel cold. Why is it cold out? It's the middle of the day. It should be warm out. These were Sarah's last thoughts as the blood poured from her body, she shuddered and breathed her last.

The city was called Monica city. As cities went, it was rather small. On that day, Joumangandr brood struck the city. With the bulk of the brood erupting from the city center, nydus worms would emerge from the ground and deliver reinforcements, cutting off any hope of escape. Mutalisks and vipers struck in swarms, destroying the small rotor wings and any other craft. Most were destroyed on the ground, and the few that managed to successfully take off were destroyed instantly. In the surrounding area, Fenrir brood had dispatched dozens upon dozens of packs that easily overwhelmed the isolated farms and communities.

No warnings were given out. The zerg attack was devastating and absolute surprise had been achieved. Those that hadn't been killed outright were infested, their numbers added to the growing swarm.

In the span of three hours, 13,000 people had been killed. Following the next few days, all sapient life in that corner of the world had been killed or infested. Within days of the massacre, the creep spread further and all life that wasn't zerg was soon killed or infested and absorbed into the swarm.

_Going back to the different broods and the different colors for them. Hope you all enjoyed. _

_-C.H._


	4. Chapter 4

Nox was beyond pleased with herself. It had taken only a few days for the still growing swarm to completely annihilate the local sapient beings and take complete control of nearly an entire continent. The Zerg numbered in the hundreds of thousands and were growing in number every day. It was time to subjugate the rest of the planet. It had been a couple days since the closest city had been annihilated and word was bound to reach the other cities. That didn't concern her much. The whole of the planetary population barely tripped over the line of 100,000 people. Already the swarm outnumbered them at least 10 to 1.

Nox for the entirety of her life couldn't understand why humans, who were already on their own in their minds would choose to be even further apart from other humans and each other. Nox grunted to herself. It was good that Claire had chosen this world so that could bring the people into the swarm and give them unity and direction. Truly they would be grateful to join the swarm instead of being out here, all on their own.

A steady thumping noise interrupted her thoughts and Nox looked up in annoyance. What was making? Her eyes widened when she spotted the source. Three of those thopter things were hovering over the main hive!

+DO NOT LET THEM ESCAPE+ Nox roared telepathically at such a volume that the closest Zerg flinched from the power. It got them to move however. Flights of mutalisks, scourges and vipers thundered into the sky screaming in rage and blood lust. The first of the thopters simply ceased to exist when two different scourges slammed into it. Scourges, normally meant to take out capital ships with their suicidal charges were complete overkill for the rotor-winged vehicles. The other two dodged and weaved as well as they could before dozens of glaive worms tore the crafts and the pilots to pieces.

Nox wasn't pleased with the results. Where had they come from? All of the defenses on the outer rings of the hive-...Of course. They hadn't come straight on as the others had, they had flown up and over. With the aerial Zerg concentrated on the lower levels of the atmosphere, the pilots must have pushed their crafts to the limits and went up and over. They had exploited a gap in the Zerg defenses. Good thing they were clearly just scouts instead of warriors. The damage that they could have done before they were killed was bad enough. A thought had the mutalisks and vipers taking to new paths to patrol as several drones abandoned what they were doing to morph into spore colonies.

Yes the humans had found a flaw in her defenses. It wasn't going to happen again. +Nashara.+ Nox barked.

+Yes my queen?+ A sibilant hissing entered her mind. Nox could feel the borderline rabid mind of the broodmother for Surtur brood. Positively feral on a good day, Nox needed that rabid aggression now.

+The city to the east. Take the entirety of your brood. Destroy it and all in your path.+

Nashara didn't respond in so many words, giving a wordless cheer as their bloodlust would finally be sated. Nox watched as the fire-orange carapace of Surtur brood suddenly start to vibrate before roaring into the sky and then wheeling to the east and taking off at a dead run.

+Jourmangdr, Tiamat and Kraken. Go west. Kill all who would oppose the swarm.+ Nox ordered. +Fenrir, Garm, and Behemoth. Go north.+ Nox nodded as the swarm moved and began to split up. Seven broods were being sent to fight. That left her Leviathan, Tarturus, and Tyrannus broods. Leviathan was larger than the other two combined, thus she had more than enough protection to keep the main hive intact. Nox looked towards the sky. It was time for the swarm to move.

Surtur was made for one thing and one thing alone. To completely annihilate the enemy. Perhaps at some point there were discussions about performing as a shock army or something similar, but those discussions were lost when Claire accidently ramped up their aggression levels to almost literal levels of insanity.

Ultralisks and brutalisks lead the way, uprooting trees with kaiser blades flashing, killing anything in their path. Should something survive the rampaging ultralisks, they disappeared underneath the living carpet of zerglings, hydralisks and roaches and other crawling and bounding Zerg. It took several days of murderous travel before Surtur reached the city. They had traveled at a steady pace and weren't tired in any way. Despite their murderous insanity, Nashara had the presence of mind to relay to Nox that the humans had been aware of them and had set up a barricade of sorts. Cars and whatever materials had been pushed into forming a wall around the city.

Humans manned the wall and were all equipped with weapons of some kind. Nox snorted. That wouldn't stop a normal brood, it certainly wouldn't stop a brood of berserkers. +Nashara, take that city. Destroy it and make your hive there. Bring the area under the control of the swarm+

+Yes my queen! FOR THE SWARM+ Nashara roared. Surtur brood screamed and roared forward. The quaking humans opened fire, their collection of rifles and molotov cocktails succeed in dropping the smaller zerg, but did nothing against the elephantine ultralisks and brutalisks. Smashing aside the barricade, dozens of screaming humans fell to the blades of the creatures before the smaller zerg swarmed over them. The humans were slaughtered to the man. The humans weren't stupid. They had set up a series of smaller barricades at different roads and had manned them well.

Local police and people with whatever collection of guns that they had on hand. Homemade bombs and molotov cocktails would sail out from the barricade and kill several zerg. Perhaps against the dreaded Arachnids it would have made a difference. Against the Zerg, it did nothing. With the larger zerg leading the way, whatever barricades they had were smashed aside as if they were leaves before a storm.

There was no overall strategy that Nashara had. Invade the city, killing every single person there. Simple and to the point. Surtur brood flooded the city, finding every nook and cranny and even swarming the sewers. By the time the sun set, the screams of the dead and dying humans had fallen silent.

The city belonged to Nashara and Surtur brood.

The other broods weren't quiet during their march. Operating with a great deal more subtly then Surtur, they moved towards the city, killing all in their path.

Nafash, placed in overall command of the three broods going north had Kraken and Tiamat on the right and left flanks with her own brood Jourmangandr taking up center. Fanning out, they left drones behind to build and maintain more hatcheries and hives as they swept towards the humans. Mutalisks, vipers and scourges raced ahead to make sure that the humans didn't escape or spread word. Scouts ranged ahead, taking out the farms and any outlying communities.

Quickly and silently. Eventually they reached the city. Nestled in a valley, this city was spread out and lacked the towering skyscrapers of others and was more spread out. If she had to guess, this was some sort of factory city. Producing the tools and weapons that humans used to farm this world. Nafash watched as the humans spotted the zerg at the tops of the valley and she watched with some amusement as they small forms ran around the trenches they had built. Interesting.

Nafash commanded her fliers to attack the city. Almost immediately, the valley echoed with the cracks of small arm fire, dropping several mutalisks. Well defended at all corners, Nafash watched without caring over the number of zerg fliers being dropped by the defenders. Their deaths had a purpose. They distracted the humans while the broods maneuvered around the valley walls until the city was completely surrounded. Recalling the fliers, Nafash studied the city. Ringed by a trench and behind the trench were cars and other materials. How interesting. They had done this quickly and efficiently. This spoke of practice.

Claire was right. These humans were resilient and quick. Nafash felt the urge to conquer and consume and evolve surge in her. If this was what a backwater planet of farmers could do, what could one of the more heavily defended planets do? She had to find out. Soon. First thing however, was this little city.

+Is the great Nafash having trouble?+ A hissing feral voice whispered into her mind. Snarling, Nafash snapped +It's called thinking Nashara. Perhaps you should try it at some point.+

+Thinking. Thinking. That's all you ever do.+

Nasfash chuckled. +Yes. I think. With Claire's help I learned to think and have vision. That is why I command three broods and you, our rabid beast barely commands the one.+

Nashara's chuckling unnerved Nafash. (Even if she would never admit it.) +Command all the broods that you want. I have mine. Mine that even Nox fears. I have all that I need. Go and think.+ With a sinister chuckle, Nashara withdrew from Nafash's mind.

With a shudder, Nafash ordered the fliers back in. After several minutes, she ordered Tiamat to attack. Flooding down the valley Tiamat slammed into the trench and then carried into the barricade before being held up. Through the overlords floating over the city, out of range of the human weapons, Nafash watched as the humans rushed reinforcements to besieged barricade. Several humans died, killed by the mutalisks who in turn were shot to pieces. Again and again Tiamat drove at the barricade which stubbornly continued to hold.

Nafash watched as the humans turned their farming machines into weapons and reaped a great toll against Tiamat. For over two hours, Tiamat continued to assault barricade, which eventually started to break. That's when the humans unleashed their biggest farming machinery, combines which they could take on an ultralisk. With lashing bladed arms, zerg fell by the dozens and Tiamat was forced to take a step back. That's what Nafash was waiting for.

+Now.+ she said quietly.

With a thunderous roar, Jourmangandr and Kraken surged forward and roared down the valley slopes. With all of their attention on Tiamat, the humans were taken completely by surprise. Their best weapons and people battling Tiamat, the other sections of the trench and barricade were weakly defended. Jourmangandr and Kraken rolled through them as if they weren't there. The humans were to slow to react. Surrounded on all sides with no reinforcements possible, their defenses collapsed in less than an hour, and every single living thing in the city died.

By the time the sun had set, Nafash was the master of the valley. She didn't rest on the laurels of her victory however. Kraken and Tiamat were dispatched outwards, setting up hatcheries and watching for anything that just might happen.

While this happened, thousands of zerg fliers took to space, cutting off any hope of escape as the three northbound broods thundered towards the main city and space port. At the main hive, Claire watched the growing cocoons and smiled. Soon their ships would be ready and Nox would be pleased.

She turned to the much smaller pair of cocoons growing under her ever watchful eyes. Her personal project was almost complete. Her smile grew wider.

_Hope you all enjoyed. Please leave those reviews and tell me what you think._

_-C.H._


	5. Chapter 5

Claire watched as the next set of the Zerg ships took to the skies. Equal to what the humans would call a destroyer, the group roared as they moved. Snakelike with gaping maws, they undulated as scourges and mutalisks flew next to them. It had taken some work, but Claire had taken the baseline leviathan and made several alterations to them, most importantly being the size. Far easier to mass produce for each brood. Nox still had the leviathan ships as the capital ship of each fleet, but now they had additional ships to provide protection and act as actual fleets. Tiamat and several other broods had been taken from the front and launched into space. Over the past couple days they had been colonizing and strip mining the closest worlds. None of them had sapient life on it, but they had minerals and some even had life and other biomass on them.

All told, it's better than nothing. With the ships finally created Claire had been able to turn her attention to some personal projects. One thing that she needed was time to create and continue her job as the evolution master of the swarm. She didn't have time to do that and run Tartarus brood at the same time. Granted she could if she really wanted to but she didn't and didn't see why she should have to.

_A sign of intelligence and good leadership is knowing when to delegate_. Her patron had told her that repeatedly and she had taken that lesson to heart. Turning to the two cocoons growing next to lair, she smiled.

During Fenrir's initial rampage through the outlying farms, Claire had commanded Nazara to bring her any humans that she could alive and intact. Only six had survived the initial assaults and the journey to Tartarus brood. Of that six, four of them freaked and refused to have anything to do with the Zerg. They were either infested or killed and tossed into the reclamation pool. That left two. Two, who after listening to Nox and Claire had agreed to join the Zerg. Nox hadn't understood why Claire went through the trouble of trying to convince them to join but Claire had been adamant. She wasn't just looking for generals, she was also looking for companions. Friends. Consorts.

For Claire to get any or all of the above, she wanted them to join the swarm out of choice and free will. A loud crack grabbed her attention. One of the chrysalis was starting to break! Quivering with excitement, Claire rubbed her hands together and waited. She couldn't and didn't bother to contain her excitement. Her first attempt at creating an infected human similar to her? Did she do well? A clawed hand broke through the shell of the chrysalis and grabbed at the air before disappearing back into the chrysalis. Then two hands grabbed the crack and pulled.

Shattering through the chrysalis and standing with a roar, her new general stood tall and proudly. Standing a bit over two meters in height, covered in quill-like fur her new general was a wolfman that only a Zerg could create. Three whip like tails curled and moved independently as the man looked over his new body. Five eyes blinked independently and then together as he smiled in wonder.

"Well? What do you think?" Claire asked softly. Looking up from his hands, the wolfman looked at her. "I love it." His voice was a deep demonic rumble. "I can feel the swarm. I am apart of something. I am strong. Thank you."

"You're welcome. You are now my general, created to defend me. This is the role that you chose, and Tartarus brood is yours to command. You answer only to myself and Nox. This all still agreeable to you David?" Claire said, her hands at her sides, waiting to rip him to pieces should he change his mind or do something stupid.

David stared at her for several seconds before he knelt into the creep. "Yes your grace." Head bowed and eyes closed, the newly formed knight knelt before his chosen Queen. Lowering herself, Claire took his face between her upper hands and kissed his forehead. "You aren't just a general and a knight, you're my friend and if you want, my lover. Now go and build my brood up. Make sure that I stay safe."

"Of course your grace, but I ask of one thing."

Claire raised an eyebrow and waited. "David was a weak little human, a fool who spent all day smoking drugs and wasting away on a farm reading about knights. I have a new life and need a new name. Your knight and guard dog deserves a name that is more fitting."

Claire thought for a moment then nodded. "You're right, Heracles. Do you know why I named you this?"

Heracles shook his head. "Millennia ago, there was a hero from a land called Greece. A demigod, born out of Zues's infidelity he would go onto do the twelve labors to absolve himself of the sins of killing his family in a fit of madness."

Raising herself up Claire stared at Heracles, her eyes seeming to dissect him. Unable to match her gaze he lowered his head. "Heracles defeated many monsters and is rightly revered for it and his strength but more importantly his wit and intelligence. You are now the new Heracles. You will defeat the monsters that threaten our Swarm but you will not be a muscle-bound idiot. Let this name remind you to be strong and fierce and intelligent. Now go. Learn. Evolve."

Claire turned from him and slithered over to the other chrysalis waiting for it to hatch. She heard Heracles lope off to do..something. She didn't care. So long as he followed her orders and protected her when she needed it, he was free to do as he pleased on his own time. A loud crack grabbed her attention and she waited for the next person to emerge from the chrysalis. Just as before she made no move to help them out. Either they succeeded or they didn't. After several moments a blade-like appendage broke through followed by two clawed hands. Where Heracles had been a two-meter tall giant built like a brick shit-house, this one was much smaller. One and a half meters tall, give or take a few centimeters, this one was more of a toned sensual strength then the raw power of Heracles. This small woman took a cautious step forward, her legs like Heracles bent forwards. Yet hers ended in hooves. She stumbled but caught herself, and she looked over her body.

Her fingers ended in wickedly sharp talons, while her skin was actually dark green-grey scales. On her back were four blades two on her upper shoulders and on the other pair just underneath them. Spiked black hair stuck out in all directions on an almond shaped face. Golden eyes turned to stare at Claire. Her blades fanned out, giving her the look of a particularly hellish butterfly.

"So? What's my name?" She asked. Interesting. Heracles's voice had changed with his infestation giving him an almost demonic voice. This one's voice however had stayed the same. The soft, seductive musical tone was appealing and Claire made a mental note to ask her to sing while she worked.

That being said, Claire bore down on the newly infested human. They matched gazes for several seconds before the little one looked away. "Hera." She said. "Your name is Hera." Hera laughed. "I like it. I'm going to go explore if you don't mind."

Claire nodded as Hera slowly walked away, pausing only to kick a zergling that didn't get out of her way fast enough.

+You've been busy.+ Nox said from behind her. Claire turned and smiled at Nox. "Now that I don't have to work on our ships anymore I can devote more time to other projects. Though sadly only psychic humans are the only ones that have any real potential. It takes too much work to create infested humans of any worth if they don't have any psychic abilities." Nox nodded, not surprised in the slightest.

+I'm not so sure about the little one.+ Nox said, staring at Hera who was watching some mutalisks fly away with a bored look on her face. "Of the humans that were infested, she was the only psychic with any degree of strength." Claire shrugged her upper arms. "This backwater mud-ball kept her here because her parents didn't know what to do so they left her alone. No one to teach her."

Claire paused. "I've heard that some go insane before they're found, and some others like Hera over there make a round trip back to sanity. Though in the process they often become sociopaths." Claire laughed. "Heracles joined because he wanted a purpose and power. Hera joined us because she was bored."

Nox gave Claire a pointed look and she laughed again. "Don't worry. I'll keep an eye on her. Was there something that you needed?"

+Yes.+ Nox said. +I want you and Tartarus brood to go with Gorgon, Kraken and Fenrir. The next system over is your birth system.+ It wasn't a question but a statement. A statement that had Claire frowning in annoyance. "Yes it is." She hissed.

Nox chuckled. +Good. Go with those broods. Take the system and evolve. I want the broods ready for the war against the Terrans.+

"And the Arachnids." Claire added. +Yes, those things as well.+ Nox agreed. +Now go. Be off this world before the sun has set.+

Claire gave a half bow and moved away, snapping for Heracles and Hera. Both came quickly and immediately left, gathering the different broods.

Captain Diego Li watched as the dropships flying towards his ship, the _John A Warden_ class ship called _Bunker Hill_. Captain Li stood tall, stoic with cold brown eyes. Closely shaved hair did little to hide the premature greying that started at his temples. His height of one hundred seventy centimeters meant that most people stood taller than him, but that never intimidated him or bothered him. Save for when his wife would deliberately put things on the top shelf whenever they argued. Or when she just felt like having a laugh at his expense.

"Sir?" A quiet voice said from behind him. Turning from the viewport, Li looked at his XO, one Lieutenant Mcdonald. Where Captain Li was a short well built man, Lieutenant Mcdonald was a tall wiry pale man with a perpetual smile on his face. A smile that rarely if ever reached his eyes. The right side of his face was a mess burn scars from a plasma burst that had hit the previous ship he had served on.

"Well?" Li asked.

"Nothing but black glass down there. Whatever was down there is long gone. MI and the Marines couldn't find anything"

Li frowned. "Thank you Lieutenant. Prep _Bunker Hill_ to return to Federation space. The Mars campaign could use our help."

"Gladly. Wasting our time out here."

Li didn't answer and turned back to the viewport. Behind him his XO started passing out orders. Sighing, Li turned and walked back to the captain's chair and sat down. What the hell did General Jenkins want him to find out here? The fact that he went so far as to call in a favor that he'd been holding onto for four years.

What could they have been doing out here? Could something have escaped? Something…"Belay that!" He barked. Everyone on the bridge flinched at the sudden outburst. Captain Li wasn't known for raising his voice.

"Mcdonald, find me the closest colonized worlds." He turned to the blond woman who was anxiously staring at him. "Lieutenant Aaker, scan FedNet and anything else. Any kind of information. I want to know about anything odd. I don't care how minor it might be. You both have an hour."

Both of them jumped to their tasks and Li sat back. "Sir?" Aaker spoke up. "There hasn't been any traffic recently." Li frowned. Then thought about what she had said. "No traffic at all?"

"Yes sir. We really are in the middle of nowhere. The only thing that could be considered close are the colony worlds of Haley's Hope and Neo-Gobi IV. Both have been quiet. Even for backwater worlds. I'm not picking up anything. The last burst transmission was from a census report from several weeks ago."

"Haley's Hope is closer." Mcdonald said, easily guessing what his captain was going to ask next.

"Thank you Lieutenant. Helm, set a course for Haley's Hope. I want us there yesterday."

_About time that the Federation was properly introduced. Hope you all enjoyed. _

_-C.H._


	6. Chapter 6

Captain Li waited, staring out of the view ports as he wondered what they were going to find the moment that they returned to realspace. "When we are five minutes from our destination, go to condition two. Don't wait for me to tell you." Li ordered Mcdonald.

"Yes sir."

After what felt like no time at all and yet forever, _Bunker Hill_ emerged in real space. Li stared out at the empty space. "Take us into the system. Stealth run, stay at condition two." His bridge crew quietly and efficiently moved to follow his orders. Stealth run was a bit of a misnomer as his ship was far too large to run any kind of stealth tech, they could at the very least move as slowly as they could somewhere with the engines on low power. This meant that with the engines on low output so that they wouldn't be broadcasting their location like they would if they went in on full power.

Or that was the theory at any rate. Li had heard it done to a few pirates and other miscreants, but he had never done it himself. "Anything?" He asked. His XO shook his head. Li leaned back in his chair and sighed. "Sir, we aren't getting anything at all. There should be some traffic even from a back water like this, but we're not getting anything from anyone." Mcdonald said, his voice thick with growing concern.

"I'm not liking this. Tell the grunts to get ready for fast drops. If the bugs are here we can hopefully rescue some people." Li said. They moved slowly through space, past a couple nondescript worlds. Nothing was happening, so why did Li feel like they were being watched?

"Contact!" An ensign named Baker shouted. "Jesus, lots of contact!" Mcdonald was behind the ensign in an eyeblink and was staring at the plot. "What the hell?" He said, staring at the instruments.

"Don't keep me in suspense gentlemen." Li growled. "Sir, we have different ships coming at us from all directions. But they don't read like Terran ships or anything that we have on record." Ensign Baker said.

"Right. Lieutenant Aeker, start broadcasting."

"Ready when you are sir."

"Attention unknown vessels, this is Captain Diego Li of the Terran Federation. You have entered Federation space. At this time, I request that you identify yourselves."

"Message sent sir on all possible channels." Letiunant Aeker reported. "I hope they're in a talking mood." Mcdonald said dryly. Li hoped the same but he kept quiet. "Ensign Baker?" Li said softly. "Nothing si-wait, contacts and lots of them! Small craft, looks fighters!"

"Condition one!" Li snapped. Lights turned red all along the ship as people turned to their respective action stations. Thanks to them staying at condition two, they were set and ready for battle in a matter of seconds. "Guns hot sir!" Mcdonald called out.

"Hold. Wait until they prove that they're hostile. Baker, what are they?"

"I'm..I'm not sure sir. The computer is telling me that they're entirely organic but they aren't the Bugs. They're something else."

"Well, no one ever said that the bugs were the only other life out there." Li said, far calmer then he really felt. He opened his mouth to say something, but his words were lost when something exploded against the hull of his ship.

"We're under attack!" Mcdonald barked.

"Yes thank you Mcdonald, I managed to notice that. Return fire!" Space lit up as red beams fired from the main guns of _Bunker Hill_. His ship continued to shudder and shake as more and more hits struck her hull. Calmly giving orders, he watched as the helmsman threw the ship this way and that, trying to shake off her attackers.

The main guns fired again and again, but they didn't seem to accomplish anything other then temporarily scattering this new enemy. The smaller point-defense turrets fired like mad, and the jubilant shouts from the weapons stations said that they were scoring hits. "Dive helm! Get us out of this!" Li barked and the helmsman hastened to comply. The dive seemed to have taken the enemy off guard, because the attacks stopped for a few seconds. Li made a mental note to commend the helmsman, Lieutenant Small for his quick reaction time.

"They're catching up sir." Ensign Baker said. "What are we fighting?" Li asked as he directed his XO to handle damage control. Baker didn't say anything except to send the images to the small viewscreen on the side of the captain's chair. Li stared at the images in a kind of fascinated horror. The first image that came up was the most numerous of their attackers. It looked like a flying flesh tube thing, with a pair of large membrane wings flapping at the top of it. The bottom part opened up with a massive fanged mouth that hurled some green things at this ship. The top half was definitely some sort of face, with a gaping maw that was filled with teeth.

The next image was of something vastly different. pairs of insect wings on it's back, it had a long spiked tail behind it, the front half of it seemed like it had bulked up like a weightlifter, with two large arms that ended in fearsome scythe-like blades. The icing on a crap-tastic cake was as he guessed, a gaping maw full teeth.

Something caught his eye. It was smaller than the other two. Much smaller and had the spread membrane wings, but they didn't flap and were in a v-shape. Several of them hung near the outskirts, away from the fighting.

"Helm, set course zero zero one five nine by one zero one five eight and go full power. I want us out of range of those damn things."

The helmsman made the adjustments just as this new enemy reached them opened fire on _Bunker Hill_ again. _Bunker Hill_ shuddered as alarms blared. Entire decks were on fire as damage control struggled to either contain the damage or repair it. Li remained a sea of calm on the chaos that was the bridge, even if it was a facade as his heart was racing. He knew how important it was to appear calm as possible.

An appearance that was lost when something slammed into _Bunker Hill_ and the ship didn't shudder. She shook and twisted like a drunk as air, debris and people spewed into space. "What just happened?!" Li demanded.

"I don't know!" Mcdonald said as he picked himself up off the floor. Pulling himself towards the work stations, Mcdonald looked it over and Li left him to it. They each had their own jobs right now. "Sir, we're losing power to the engines." Helm reported. "Up and around. Just like we practiced." Li said, raising his voice to be heard over the alarms. Once again, something hit _Bunker Hill_ and the ship staggered like a poleaxed deer.

"Mcdonald!" Li shouted. "Major fires throughout several decks! Heavy casualties and entire sections of the ship are open to space! We can't take much more of this!" Mcdonald yelled. _Bunker Hill_ writhed and heaved as she struggled to stay alive. A large explosion signaled the loss of a main gun, and most of the point defense guns had been destroyed. Another massive explosion knocked them to the ground and the ship heaved like a drunken animal as more alarms screeched. Secondary explosions ripped through the ship.

It was mainly thanks to Li's continued calm orders and the sheer skill of the helmsman that they were even still intact. Staggering through another explosion, Mcdonald clutched on the side of the chair and swore under his breath. "We aren't going to last. We need to leave."

"I know. I know." Li said quietly. "Emergency jump. Anywhere." He ordered. "Mcdonald. Please, pray for the people that we're abandoning."

The dying _Bunker Hill_ gathered energy for one final jump, as the ship was being torn to pieces by this new enemy, and she was more holes and fire than intact. Just before she could destroyed, _Bunker Hill_ slid from reality and entered FTL.

On the former world of Haley's Hope, Nox quickly learned of the human ship's escape. Perhaps the rigours of its journey would kill the crew and destroy the ship. She wasn't going to bet on that however. At her command, the broods that remained in system opened up wormholes and began moving to different systems. Only Leviathan brood remained in system. She pulsed out warnings to Claire that humans would soon learn of the Zerg. With that finished, she started gathering her brood to prepare for the oncoming war. The last city had been conquered and now there wasn't any life left on the planet save for the Zerg.

She knew that they would be discovered at some point, but it was sooner then she would have liked. She noted with some pleasure that the ships that had been repeatedly tricked and outran but they were learning and thinking about what had happened. Some were even telepathically communicating with the other ships and applying the human tricks to their skills. The next time that they met the humans, they would fly and fight better.

Nox left them to it and focused more on an overall strategy. While they had considerable strength, Nox wasn't thrilled with the idea of fighting the Terrans and Arachnids at the same time. It wasn't a certainty, but it could happen and Nox knew that while she could win, it would create more problems then she needed or wanted to deal with.

+Strip this planet of everything of value. We're leaving.+ Nox ordered. She turned towards the hive and felt the pleasure flow through her. At last. No matter what happened, she would enjoy enjoy the coming war.

Responding to her joy, the swarm roared and trilled and the cacophony seemed to reach the heavens.

Claire moved slowly and bit her lower lip as she concentrated. She was experimenting with a new formula, trying to create a more explosive attack for the Bile Launchers. Using the baseline of Banelings, she was certain that she could create a far more devastating artillery for the swarm. First part would be to create the piece, which is why she was concentrating right now. The slightest wrong movement and her new artillery shell would literally blow up in her face.

+Queen Claire!+ Heracles's voice thundered into her mind. Startled, Claire's hand slipped and the pulsing bio-shell contents mixed with the ones that were in her hand. Swearing violently, Claire grabbed the bio-shell and with all of her strength she hurled the bio-shell as far away as she could. Just in time for it violently exploded in mid-air.

Claire watched impassively as the purple-black cloud slowly dissipated. +You better have a damn good reason for interrupting my work.+ She said, making sure that Heracles would feel the annoyance and irritation.

+Forgive me, but Hera is reporting a Terran ship on the outskirts. It looks like one of their cruisers, but it's black.+

One of the Special Forces ships? What was it doing all the way out here? +Take it. I want to know what they're doing. If possible. If she can't, then destroy it. Either way that ship is not to leave this system.+

+I understand+ Claire returned to her work, leaving them to deal with the Terrans. She refused to be rushed for any reason. Rushed science was a disaster and Claire would not have any disasters to her name. To properly show off her genius, one must work slowly and display complete works of science and art. Arms moving, she began to form another bio-shell and hopefully this time no one will interrupt her work. In fact… +Heracles. Hera. You have your duties. Heracles is in over all command. Do not bother me unless it's important.+ Claire ordered and tuned out their acknowledgements.

Heracles charged across the ground, a pack of Devouring Ones close to him. Charging up a hill on all fours, he stopped when they reached the crest of the hill and he overlooked one of the few cities that had yet to fall to the Zerg. When they had arrived in system, he had taken Fenrir brood with him onto this planet, Neo-Gobi IV. The other broods had landed on the different planets and were in the process of stripping them of everything of value. Hera had remained in space in overall command of the Zerg fleet.

Hera loved space and the freedom of travel. Heracles greatly preferred to have solid ground beneath his feet. When Tarturus and Fenrir had been in orbit over Neo-Gobi, he had ordered a mass drop of sacs across the continents. Heracles felt that there was no time for subtlety and as such a mass drop were ordered. Neo-Gobi had a larger population than Haley's Hope and was far more industrialised. While not as industrialised as some of the inner colony worlds, they still have a significant amount of factories and farms.

Unfortunately for Neo-Gobi, they were completely caught off guard. Thousands of sacs had landed directly in the cities and several had fallen within the first day. Farms had fallen afterwards as the Zerg had spread out in rivers of death from the broken and burning cities.

Those on the night side had been spared and Heracles had moved quickly to establish as many nests as possible and sending scouts and small armies out to take any villages and the few cities that hadn't fallen. Dispatching Hera with several ships to the other side of the planet, they had blocked anyone from leaving and started raining more sacs upon the cites.

Two more cities fell before the night was out and the last one held out. This one, that Heracles gazed at from atop of the hill. Neo-Gobi had held a population of around five hundred thousand people. Heracles snarled. Through the eyes of the Overlords, he watched as the humans ran around. Some gathered weapons to fight, others sank to despair and seemed to give up.

He ordered a raiding party forward. Zerglings and Hydralisks bounded forward in the dozens and Heracles ordered two more raids at different angles to better test the humans. Feeling the power of the swarm thrum through him, he was thrilled to be apart of something. To be a commanding general in a mighty army. He was no longer a weak human, doomed to spend the rest of his life sitting on some tractor or whatever else on a farm.

This was infinitely better. The beauty of his lord and master was just the icing on the cake. Gunfire echoed from the city. Glancing at it, Heracles grinned and made ready to learn. This was just a trial run. The real enemy was going to come soon and he would be ready.

Hera stood amongst the open bay and watched the stars from the Leviathan. Normally not one for expressing herself, she couldn't help but be moved by the endless sea of stars. So different from her boring homeworld, where she had been trapped with superstitious parents and community that wanted to ignore the wider universe and focus on their farms. Being able to read minds had turned her off from everyone and it had taken her nearly eighteen years to learn how to control it.

Hera snarled in annoyance and banished the early memories of her drooling in a corner as hundreds of unfiltered thoughts flooded her mind. That was then. This was now. Hera opened her mind and the information from the Overlords and the small scout ships entered her mind. The Terran ship was effectively idling along, nothing really doing anything at all. Even the glow from the engines was a low dull blue. Perhaps they had engine trouble?

Their shit luck.

Hera ordered the ships to move in slowly, stealthily. She watched as the destroyers moved into position. They swam through space in an up and down motion, putting in mind of the whales that Hera had seen in the books growing up. Ever so slowly, they moved into position. Until they were close enough.

Tendrils snapped out and slammed into the Terran ship. They yanked the ship towards one destroyer and the other one pulled itself towards the Terrans and both attached themselves to it. Through the tendrils hundreds of Zerg charged into the ship, killing everyone that they came into contact with.

She diverted entire groups to the engines, making sure that they couldn't self-destruct or do anything to escape. Hera knew her orders. Capture the ship and get any and all information that she could. Or destroy it, but she would much rather capture the damn thing. She ordered her Leviathan closer and she watched impassively as tendrils from the Leviathan slipped between the ships and hit the bridge. Taking a deep breath, she sprinted down the tendril, Zerg following closely. Jumping through the open fanged maw, her hooves collided with the chest of a woman who was getting to her feet after the tendrils had slammed into the bridge. The woman flew across the bridge and slammed into the wall and didn't get back up again.

She backhanded another human as he drew a pistol, and his face caved in from the blow and he dropped like a stone. "All of you surrender. Now." Hera said. "If we don't?" A dark-skinned woman demanded. "Are you the captain?" Hera asked, staring into her brown eyes.

The woman shook her head. "No. I'm the comms officer. You kicked the captain in the chest."

Hera blinked and looked at the groaning woman laid out on the floor. "Oh. Well. Surrender or die. Those are your options." Zerglings snarled and flared their wings as they waited for the word to attack. The woman looked around and Hera followed her thoughts as she tried to think of ways to get out of this. Hera was surprised at the speeds that she thought, discarding one plan and thinking of new ones just as quickly.

"You have an interesting mind. Why aren't you the captain ms. Claire? Did you know that you have the same name as my queen?"

Claire's mouth dropped. "You're..You're a" She stuttered.

"A telepath yes."

Claire's face paled and then she gave up. Her shoulders slumped and she put her hands up. Hera moved amongst the bridge crew, looking through their minds and then she nodded. "Take Claire to the Leviathan. Don't let her escape or go anywhere." Hera watched as the Zerglings nipped and drove Claire up the tendril and then she turned to the remaining bridge crew. "Take the captain and make sure that she stays alive. Kill the rest."

"You bitch! You said that we would live if we surrendered!" One of them shouted. "I did. I didn't say that you would stay alive forever." Hera replied evenly.

With that, the Zerg descended on the screaming survivors and tore them to pieces. Hera watched impassively as one the guy that had called her a bitch lost his arm and then his throat. His outraged screams turning into loud gurgles as blood fountained from his wounds. "Open the doors and kill the rest of the crew. Don't touch any of the computers."

The door to the bridge opened and she stepped over the corpses to sit at one of the terminals. She activated the screen and gave a light grunt. So that's what happened. This ship, called _Night Hawk_ had suffered engine failure and they had dropped out of FTL in order to do badly needed repairs before they blew up.

It was just terrible luck that they had ended up in a system infested by the Zerg. Well, in their defense they didn't know that the Zerg were here. Hera thought with some amusement. She continued working through the computers, anything that she couldn't find she would just ask her two new prisoners. She hoped that her queen would let Claire join them. They could use another general and a friend.

And she was cute too. She could already see Heracles's brain melting at the thought of a foursome. He already nearly had a heart attack when Claire and Hera had invited him to bed with them. Lucky for him that he had a second heart. As Claire had said, one can never have too many true friends or lovers.

Hera frowned. Her new friend was going to need a new name. Calling them both Claire would just be confusing and annoying. Humming to herself, she thought up new names as her Zerg tore through the ship, killing everyone that they came into contact with. Amongst the blood and corpse filled bridge, Hera smiled.

Forward Operating Base _Sarajevo _hung in the vastness of space like a judgemental crone. This newly created base was built along the lines of _Ticonderoga_ and other Fleet Battlestations. The biggest difference being that it was far larger and built to supply multiple fleets and armies for different campaigns.

_Sarajevo_ was launched shortly before the campaign for Mars and the Third, Fifth and Seventh fleets were stationed here, ready to launch new offensives into the Arachnid Quarantine Zone. No matter how fleets were stationed there, it ran as a well oiled machine. Nothing could disrupt it.

Until today.

Emerging from FTL, the broken remains of _Bunker Hill_ flew towards the base. A piece of the engine came off and other debris joined it in a steady stream behind it. Even as the panicking station crew watched, a small explosion staggered the ship and knocked it off course. Entire sections had been torn open, like a wild animal had torn into it. No one knew how the ship was still in one piece, but that didn't stop them from launching rescue craft to tow the stricken vessel.

Captain Diego Li stared at the remains of his ship. It was too damaged to repair and send back into service. For the same price they could literally build a new ship. By the time that they had returned to _Sarajevo_, the surviving crew had been at wits end. Several of them were in the hospital for not only wounds taken in the fight but exhaustion as well.

Tears threatened to fall. Just before they could reach _Sarajevo,_ the explosion that had knocked them off course had opened up one of the few sections to space that had been sealed off. A section that held the badly wounded that had been treated and set aside for additional treatment once they returned to _Sarajevo_. They had died instantly. Dozens of them.

A third of his crew had died in the fight and retreat. A third. His people. They had trusted him to lead them and he had failed. Another third was badly injured and required extensive stays in the hospital. "Captain." someone softly said from behind him. Li turned to face Mcdonald.

"Yes?"

Mcdonald drew a breath and gathered himself. Li turned from him and gave him a little privacy so that he could compose himself. "I have General Jenkins on the line. He sent me to get you. He's asking for an update."

Li nodded and said "Good."

Li pushed past Mcdonald and didn't look back at his dead ship. He didn't know what those things were that attacked him, but he knew that he would have a new ship as soon as possible. Hatred burned through him.

They had killed his crew. Arachnids? A new species? It didn't matter. A new enemy had attacked Federation worlds and killed her people. Every instinct in him demanded to retaliate and destroy this enemy.

His honor as a citizen and a member of the Terran Federation navy would accept nothing else.

_Claire didn't meet her family in the invasion of Neo-Gobi. They were killed during the first landings. She wouldn't have recognized them anyways as she had run away from them about 16 years ago and then went out of her way to forget about them. _

_Hope you all enjoyed. Please R&R_

_-C.H._


	7. Chapter 7

Nox turned from the newly evolved hive as she felt a warning pulse into her mind. After leaving the system that they had been in for so long, Nox had left behind a few Zerg to serve as her eyes for the inevitable Terran response. A couple had been caught off guard by the sudden speed and ferocity of the Terran response and had been killed. Others had managed to hide and keep Nox informed of the Terran movements before being killed themselves.

Individually their deaths did not matter. What did matter was the information that they had provided. The last of the scouts stayed as long as they could before Nox ordered their retreat. The Terrans had attacked with dozens of ships and had flooded the former colony with thousands of ground forces. They wouldn't find anything living there. Nox's broods had taken everything of value, even stripping the minerals from the very bedrock.

Nox idly wondered if it would be possible to take away the very oxygen of the world and to drink a world dry. Something to ponder. After leaving the system they had jumped to an uninhabited system. Every single planet in this system would have required extensive terraforming to make it habitable for humankind.

For the zerg it was just what they needed. It had been several days and already the forced evolutions from living on such hostile worlds was taking effect. A higher resistance to extreme temperatures to start with and easily the most important.

+Nashara. Take your brood and go to this system. Destroy anything that enters it but do not leave it.+ Nox ordered. Nox then directed several other broods to different systems and also ordered them into defensive positions. Explorators and scout ships were also launched and Nox wanted to know what was around them. These Arachnids that Claire had mentioned, Nox wanted them found. They could serve as useful additions to the Swarm.

Nox looked across the rocky planet and it reminded her of the world that she and Claire first escaped from. Humming with amusement and the fond memories of their escape, she turned back to directing the swarm and preparing for a two front war.

Clair watched as the bio-launchers erupted from their cocoons with the new evolutions that she had created. Now with a more explosive bio-plasmic shell, they did considerably more damage and reloaded a second faster. These new upgrades were also added to the ships.

+My Queen.+ Hera's melodious voice telepathically entered Claire's mind. +Yes?+ Claire asked.

+We have finished taking _Night Hawk_ and the captain and comms-officer are yours to interrogate.+

+I'm on my way. Heracles, I'll be in space with Hera.+

Claire felt Heracles acknowledgment and was proud as he sacked another city and directed a broodmother to take another. Her general was really coming into terms and learning. Summoning an Overlord, she took it to the Leviathan that was now entering orbit. Slithering through the organic hallways, Claire noted that the Leviathan appeared to have grown a bit. Not enough for a drastic change, but enough to be noticable. She made a mental note to check on it and see what had caused it.

Claire entered a cavernous room were attached to the walls where two women. Both were wrapped up in various tentacles and arms were held aloft with their legs bound and arms held out. Both looked as if they had been crucified. One was dark-skinned with close cut curls and wore a face of impressive hatred. The other one was blond with a few lines on her face and a slight tan to her skin. Her head rolled about and she appeared to have trouble focusing. Moving through the room, the dark-skinned woman looked at her in horror while the other one gave only the slightest acknowledgment of her arrival.

Claire didn't react when Hera suddenly appeared from behind her and climbed onto her back. Latching onto her back, Hera kissed Claire's chin and then neck. "The dizzy one is the captain. The other one is the comms officer. She's smart. I think she would make a great addition to Tarturus. I've named her Selene."

"Selene?"

Hera shrugged. "We have a theme going on. Might as well stick with it."

Claire didn't really have a counter argument to that and decided to just roll with it. "You did well. Thank you."

Hera made no outward appearance that she had heard or cared, but Claire new that she was pleased to be complimented. With Hera staying on her back, Claire slithered over to the two bound women. She took the captain's head in her hands and looked her over. "Hrmm. Heavily concussed. Easy to treat." Taking one of the larvae that was on the floor, she quickly adjusted it's baseline DNA and then attached it to the base of the captain's neck. Leaving the woman to be treated she turned towards Selene.

"Selene is it?" Claire asked gently.

"Fuck you you fucking freak!" Selene snapped and Claire frowned. People being rude when she was being polite always annoyed her. Claire felt Hera shift on her back and heard her hiss. She wasn't sure what Hera did, but Selene did shut up and look away.

"Lets try again. Selene, is it?" Claire asked.

"No. No. It's Claire Devries."

"I gave her another name because two Claire's is annoying." Hera said and Claire chuckled. "The swarm welcomes all. Would you like to join us? We were all once human ourselves."

"So you're a traitor." the human said.

Claire and Hera looked at each other and then shrugged. "In the literal definition, yes." Claire said. "However, you'll find a much more rewarding life with the swarm. Here we are all apart of something, a unified thought. No one is alone. Should you accept you would be a part of my personal retinue. A commanding officer. Much like Hera here."

"Pass."

Claire hummed for a second. "The other option is death." She said bluntly.

The human Claire was silent for about a minute. "I'll take that one."

"Is she?" Claire asked and Hera nodded. "She's serious. She's scared and doesn't want to die, but she would rather do so then betray her family. She's thinking about her husband and three kids back on Harlan."

Claire grunted. +My Queen! Alzrej of Gorgon brood has found the Arachnids! They are in the next system! A large infestation!+ Heracles thundered into her mind. +Finally. Inform Alzrej to slaughter them and collect their essence.+ Claire immediately responded.

Claire hummed with excitement. So much essence to acquire and use! How could the Zerg be improved with the essence of the Arachnids? Hera climbed down from Claire's back and Claire gave her a quick kiss before leaving. "Get all of the information that you can from those two and then kill them. Learn and evolve."

"Yes my Queen." Hera said she bowed before Claire's retreating back. She turned towards the two humans, the captain who was just starting to focus and think clearly. "What was that?" the human Claire asked.

"She is my queen and my friend and lover." Hera answered. Not quite understanding what was so confusing about that. "Don't worry. I'm not a savage. Once I know what I need to know, I'll make it quick and painless."

"Is that supposed to make me feel any better?" Claire snapped.

"Um. Yes. If you like, I could draw it out and make you suffer. Have you ever seen someone eaten alive?"

Claire blanched and looked away. "That's what I thought." Hera said. She turned towards the captain and took her face into her hands. Her eyes stared straight into the human's eyes. "Pity. Maybe you could have made a fine addition to the swarm. My Queen forgot to ask you, but the Arachnids appearing...wherever was more important. Now, don't resist. The more you fight back the greater the damage will be."

"What the fu-?" The captain started to say before Hera's mind slammed into hers. With the subtlety of a wrecking ball, Hera tore through the human's mind. Absorbing all of the information that she could and discarding the rest. Ship movements, persons of note, ship information, fighting skills, the list ran on and on. The human tried to put up a fight, but her mental defenses were about as effective as a paper mache wall before a hurricane. Only after several minutes did Hera let go of the human's head. The captain's head dropped and she drooled as tears poured down her face.

"Thank you." Hera said and twisted her neck. The tentacles retracted and the corpse hit the ground. "Your turn. I really think you should join us. You would like it. You're smart and strong and you could be smarter and stronger."

Claire snorted. "No thanks. I'm human and going to die as a human."

Hera sighed. "If you like. Now please don't resist. I want to make this as painless as possible."

"You didn't for Captain Anne." Claire snapped.

"Well no, but I told her not to resist. She didn't listen."

Hera took Claire's face between her hands and looked into her eyes. With the same amount of subtlety, she entered Claire's mind and tore through it. Claire tried to resist and was a little more effective but she still was overwhelmed by the Zerg admiral. Hera sighed after she got the information and withdrew from the human's mind. "I told you not to do that." She said as the human's head flopped forward and tears streamed down her face.

"Fuck...Fuck you." She snapped.

Hera shrugged and said "You're going to die now. Think of your family. It'll be quick. I did promise after all." Claire looked up at Hera with undisguised hatred and then closed her eyes. She would never know but Hera helped her with her telepathy as she composed herself. As images of a summer picnic back on Harlan filled her mind, Hera gently reached for her and snapped her neck.

Claire Devries, the last surviving member of the Terran Federation Special Forces starship _Night Hawk_ died instantly.

Alzrej roared a challenge as the Zerg charged and slammed into the Arachnids. Gorgon, the blue-grey brood had landed on this rocky desert world and at first hadn't met any resistance. A couple days ago, Heracles had dispatched her and Gorgon brood to this system after a couple scouts had reported life. Eager to add them and the biomass to the swarm, Heracles had ordered her to go. A scouting party of Zerglings had been ambushed by some warrior bugs and had been wiped out.

Several more patrols had been lost before they had found a concentration of Bugs and wiped them out. Then came this massive offensive. Both sides had found each other and had met on this dry yellow-orange rocky field. Zerg tunneled their way through the planet's crust before entering the Bugs own tunnels and fighting them there. War was waged on the surface, air and tunnels. Alzrej watched as a group Zerglings piled up on top of Warrior and tore into it. Its orange blood flew everywhere.

Another warrior ignored the spikes sticking out of its face and bit the head off a Hydralisk. Warriors climbed over an Ultralisk and tore into it as its kaiserblades slashed this way and that and slew dozens of other warriors before dying. Even then it crushed several other bugs beneath its bulk before dying. Hoppers battled Mutalisks and Vipers. The screams and roars from both sides filled the air as a living carpet of two different species slammed into each other and battled. Alzrej watched as several bio-plasma slammed into her lines, creating several large holes that the Arachnids quickly filled and pushed Gorgon back.

A quick thought had several Vipers break off from fighting the Hoppers and launching blinding clouds at the Plasma Bugs. Blinded, the Plasma Bugs stopped firing as they tried to move out of the green clouds. Defilers stealthily moved amongst the legs of the fighting strains before launching Plague clouds. The bulges that the Arachnids had created suddenly found themselves trapped in an acidic carcinogenic cloud that killed everything in and near it. Several Zerg were also trapped and killed by the overly lethal weapon but that didn't matter. The offensive faltered, and a fresh attack pushed the Arachnids back until the line was more less where it had been. A loud roar announced that the Ultralisk that had been killed had resurrected and was now fighting again. Torrasque strain. So useful.

A loud explosion signaled the death of a Plasma Bug and Alzrej noted with some pleasure as she had taken advantage of their numbers had directed several Mutalisks to attack the Plasma Bugs. Vipers concentrated on the Hoppers and had downed many of them.

Interesting enough, there weren't that many to begin with. It was as if the Arachnids relied far too much on their walking artillery pieces to deal with enemy air units. With a thought, Alzrej directed her bases to begin producing more fliers. If they were going to be so kind as to essentially give them control of the air, who was she to pass that up?

With the Plasma Bugs either blinded or forced to retreat from the relentless air attacks, Alzrej was able to force a blow and force the Arachnids to step back. Roaches spewed acid as Hydralisk spikes tore into the warriors. Even so, they could take an absurd amount of damage. Several times the warriors would take what should have been killing blows and charge through it to kill one or more Zerg.

Alzrej compensated by having her Zerg gang up on the Arachnids and quickly pull them down. Alzrej watched as the air was gradually cleared and immediately directed her air power to attack the Arachnids. Under the combined assault of her heavy troopers and a relentless air assault, the Arachnids were gradually being pushed back.

In the tunnels below, Banelings led the charge as they detonated and killed several Arachnids. Zerglings and Hydralisks followed, slaughtering everything in the tunnels. It was when they reached a tunnel center, a large room with several tunnels branching off. Here, a greater concentration of Arachnids absorbed their losses easily and forced a stalemate. Deep underground, the two forces tore into each other with merciless brutality.

Bit by bit, the Zerg forced the Arachnids back. Alzrej was justifiably confident. That was until the Swarm Hosts sounded an alarm and the Overlords provided her with a vision. The Arachnids had tunneled around and were attacking her hive clusters! The Locusts and Spine Crawlers killed dozens of Arachnids. Larvae mutated quickly and more Zerg rushed to defend the hive clusters. A loud roar announced the arrival of several massive Bugs. These black beetle shaped ones spewed an orange corrosive liquid that burnt away dozens of Zerg. Several air attacks killed a couple, but even so the Arachnids seemed to take heart from their appearance and attacked with a renewed ferocity.

Alzrej was no longer confident of Gorgon's inevitable victory. She would deal with this attack on the hive clusters. She would evolve and adapt. She would adjust her strategy and learn.

No one was going to stop the Swarm.

_Rewatching Starship Troopers I noticed that the Arachnids didn't have much in the way of air power, mostly using the ground forces and plasma bugs. Hope you all enjoyed and leave those reviews. _

_-C.H _


	8. Chapter 8

Alzrej cheered as the Arachnids were pushed back. With air dominance achieved, the Broodmother had directed the Mutalisks to make repeat attacks on the tanker bugs. The glaive wurms tore into the tank bugs before bouncing off into other Arachnids. With the death of each tanker, the mutalisks were directed to attack the plasma bugs, still wreaking havoc on her brood. The earlier attack on the hive clusters had been beaten back with the Queens there taking charge of the defenses. Every once in awhile a new attack would be launched at the hive clusters but they were dealt with easily. Essence was being collected at an astonishing rate. The bio-mass of both sides was being devoured at incredible rates.

Living carpets of chittering teeth and blades slammed into each other and tore into each other with vicious abandon. That's when Alzrej noticed something interesting. So wrapped up in the battle, she hadn't paid any attention to what Claire had been doing when she had spun new strands into the Zerg.

Now she saw the changes that the Queen of Evolution had wrought. The newer and more evolved strains were slightly larger, with thicker carapaces and talons and fangs. These new mutations proved to be to be very effective as they wreaked a fearful tally amongst the Arachnids. Alzrej watched impassively as a Hydralisk's face disappeared between a warrior's jaws. Especially when the spikes from an Impaler killed the offending Bug easily.

Another attack on the hive cluster forced the recently created air units to stay and defend the hive clusters instead of being used at the main battle field. Even so, the Zerg were winning. Alzrej watched as the Vipers launched clouds at the plasma bugs, but even then they still continued to fire. They fired at a slower rate, but they still fired. Alzrej snarled when one shot came dangerously close to her.

Vipers dove on the plasma bugs and after several attack runs, the walking plasma batteries exploded. Deprived of their heavy weapons, air support and artillery, the Arachnid warriors were pulled apart and killed in the thousands. Air attacks created holes in the Arachnid line where the Zerg flooded into eventually creating pockets of Arachnids. Attacked from underground, around them and in the air, each pocket was rapidly overrun.

Bit by bit, the arachnids were forced back with horrific casualties.

Claire spun new strands as fast as she possibly could. The essence taken from the Arachnids was an immense boon. All across the swarm, the new DNA was being added to the Zerg. Each breed was grown slightly larger with greater and sharper weapons. Clair obviously was going to assimilate the Bug warriors, but first some tweaks had to be made. More importantly, she had to figure out how the Bugs fired their plasma into space and routinely hit the human ships! Even through the clouds that the Vipers had launched at them hadn't slowed them down much. If anything, they had hesitated because they didn't know what they were being attacked with, not from anything actually blinding them.

Claire had to know how they did it and to add that ability to the swarm!

+Heracles, find out who we can send to reinforce Alzrej. She's winning now but I don't know how long that is going to last.+

+Yes, my queen. +

Claire nodded, confident that Heracles would be able to figure out which brood to move. She gleefully returned to her work.

Hera looked up from the map of the near-by systems. Her scouts at the edge of the system were telepathically announcing an alarm. Announcing was a bit of an understatement in actuality. They were practically screaming until they were suddenly cut off. She had just watched as Fenrir brood had opened a wormhole and left the system when her scouts had started screaming. That had left her with only Kraken and Tartarus broods.

Kraken was far larger and had more ships then Tartarus which only existed to protect Claire. It wasn't made for grand conquests. Protect the Queen of Evolution and that was it. Hera made up her mind. Leaving the majority of Tartarus in orbit of Neo-Gobi, she took the bulk of Kraken and select elements of Tartarus.

Stretching her fleet out, she launched the swarm-fighters and began to position her ships. "Come little humans. Come. Oblivion awaits." Hera taunted. Her confident smirk stayed on her face as more then a dozen human ships thundered into real space.

Space light up as bio-plasma and laser weaponry crossed back and forth. Hera sat down on her makeshift throne, her mind connected to the ships under her command. She watched as the shots from a cruiser struck a human ship causing fires and destruction. She hissed as she felt a destroyer die under concentrated fire. A Zerg heavy cruiser was forced to retreat under the sheer volume of fire that it was taking. The other ships of the swarm weren't doing as well either.

This won't do at all.

Hera pulled her ships back into a more concentrated defensive formation. She launched every single one of the swarm-fighters and demanded that the ships spawn more. Sweeping out in a wide formation, she watched as a _John A Warden _class ship heaved and tried to dodge the fire from Zerg ships and fighters until a couple scourge's slammed into the engines. The ship staggered and was stunned, long enough for Mutalisks to swarm the stricken ship and kill it.

The ship heaved and shuddered before coming apart in a ball of nuclear flame and shrapnel .A _Athena _class ship moved towards the remains of the dead ship. Maybe it wanted to rescue whatever survivors that they could, maybe they desired revenge.

Whatever they wanted didn't matter. Several scourge's slammed into the ship, breaking it apart. Hera watched triumphantly as it went up in flames, presumably taking all hands with it. Hera pulled her fighters back and watched as the left wing of the attacking Terrans followed. Vipers engaged the human fighters as the Mutalisks swarmed in front of the Zerg ships, sacrificing themselves to stop any kind of attack from hitting Hera's ships.

Space was alight with fire as ships from both sides weaved and dodged and fired. Red beams slammed into a Zerg cruiser that shuddered and bleed from the gaping wounds in its sides. Tendrils snapped forward and slammed into a human ship and Zerg flooded the vessel. Hera waited as the left wing of the human fleet advanced far enough.

Hera's shout of victory came more as an animalistic snarl as elements of Zerg ships from above and below the battle lines stormed forward, launching fighters and attacks. Several human ships buckled and came apart under the repeat hammer blows from in front, above and below them. With the speed of thought, Hera directed the ships as both sides moved into space terms was point blank range.

Hera was reminded of the age of pre-industrial man, when wooden ships would line up against each other and open fire. As the two sides crashed into each other, the lines became blurred to the point of non-existence. Such a close combat favored the Zerg, who could easily board the human ships. Of course, they had to get through the human ships frankly impressive volume of fire, but it could be done.

Hera watched as globules of frozen blood and broken carapaces from the dead and broken Zerg ships drifted past. Mixed in with the remains was the scraps and burnt pieces of human ships as the two sides tore into each other. Mutalisks and Vipers chased and were chased by human fighters as Scourges sought to detonate themselves against their targets.

What could they possibly be planning? With the vicious fighting going on, neither side was going any- Hera froze.

+CLAIRE! + Her telepathic scream echoed across space. She launched herself up from her throne and stared off into space, where in the distance the glowing dote of Neo-Gobi hung there.

+I know Hera. The Terran Federation is in orbit and Heracles is rushing back to the main hive. Defeat the humans and come back to me.+ Claire said calmly.

+My Queen! Please be safe.+ Hera pleaded, tears flooded her eyes at the thought of her queen, her friend and lover dying. At any other point Hera would have wanted to analyze this idea of being upset about anyone dying, but the only thing that she could think of was the potential danger of someone that she respected and loved being in incredible danger.

+Our knight-wolf will protect me.+ Claire said. +I'll see you soon.+ Before Claire broke off contact, Hera heard her recall Fenrir brood back to the system. Hera knew that it would be hours before they could turn around and come back.

+Heracles. Protect our queen or I will flay the flesh from your bones and bathe what's left of you in acid.+ Hera snarled, making sure that he felt the full force of her anger and rage. Heracles didn't respond verbally, instead he just sent a mental picture of the ground before him disappearing as he sprinted all out with swarms of Zerg behind him.

Hera nodded. Okay. He was on his way back. He would protect their queen. Or he would die screaming in agony. Either or.

Hera turned her attention back to the battle. She would win this. She had to.

_Hope you all enjoyed. _

_-C.H._


	9. Chapter 9

Corporal Anna Ivanov swore as the dropship bucked as it entered the atmosphere. She swore in Bulgarian again as the dropship leveled out and then bucked.

"Right. They're shooting at us. Stand by for some serious chop. Dropping in ten." The pilot said, voice tight. Anna glanced at her lieutenant who had his helmet down as he drank from a canteen. What lieutenant Andre Hernandez lacked in anything that could be considered a defining feature, he more than made up for having a brain. Rumor had it that he was due up for promotion to captain.

"Five minutes!" The pilot called as the ship bucked and everyone shook in their seats. "Platoon! Helmet up!" Hernandez yelled. Helmets closed up and people double checked their rifles. "We jump, hit the ground and clear the area for the FOB to land! Stick together and cover each other!"

The ramp at the back of the dropship opened and Anna watched as they broke through the clouds and fast moving green spheres raced past them. "Hah! These new bugs can't aim for shit!" Smythe yelled. No sooner then he had said something then a sphere slammed into the dropship behind them. A direct hit to the bay and the dropship broke apart in flames.

"Hey Smythe, maybe shut the fuck up?" Anna snapped.

"Uh yes corporal."

"One minute!" The pilot yelled.

"Stand!" the LT yelled.

Everyone unlocked the shock braces and stood. "Jump!" the pilot yelled.

The LT was the first person out the bay, with the sergeants on his heels. Anna was a little slower, having to stop and shove the new kid named Jones. He had hesitated and Anna wasn't about to let him stay behind. One Jones had jumped, Anna had followed.

She had jumped into hell. Even though they had avoided jumping directly over a concentration of the biggest nests, they were still being shot at. Breathing heavily, she watched as another dropship took a hit and exploded, and pieces of burning corpses plummeted along with the ruins of the dropship. All around here, explosions filled the sky. The flesh tubes with wings darted in and around the drops ship, screaming as they fired at the dropships. Whatever they fired bounced off of one target and hit another. Anna watched in horror as one dropship was torn apart by the attack, undoubtedly killing everyone on board. The dropships next to the one that was destroyed didn't fair any better. The gaping holes were torn in the sides and one spun out of control as its engines were destroyed.

Anna had been plummeting face first, but at the right moment she started her thrusters and righted herself just in time to slam into the ground in a kneeling position. Raising to a crouched position, she opened fire on this jumping multi-limbed dog thing. Shredding it with bullets, she watched as the rest of her squad landed close to her.

Everyone had made it. Anna thanked the god she only sporadically believed in. "Looks like the flying bug things are focusing on the dropships and not the grunts." a squad member named Roberts said.

Anna grunted. "We can't do anything about that." A marker appeared on her HUD. "The LT landed up there over there! With me and shoot anything that isn't human!" she ordered.

Sprinting forward, the sounds of her squad breathing harsh in her ears. The screams and roars of the aliens mixed in with the screams and shouts of the humans. Gunfire made for a continuous sound, a sound that she ignored. Sprinting at speeds that was only possible thanks to the power armor that they wore, they reached the line and joined their brothers and sisters in arms.

Anna shuddered at the sight, a living carpet of monsters. The small dog things bounded forward at freakish speeds as the larger serpent things followed behind them. Anna swore when a bunch of spikes slammed into the MI next to her. He dropped without a sound. More spikes filled the air, and many MI started screaming in agony as spikes hit them and they fell. Anna spotted this purple thing rolling towards the line and she sighted in on it and opened fire.

It fell apart and Anna was cheered slightly at the fact they didn't seem to need as many bullets as the Bugs do. Thumps behind her said that reinforcements were landing. More and more MI joined the line, replacing the ones who were injured or killed. Massive explosions in the middle of the aliens killed dozens of them.

How annoying was it that they had thousands to replace them. An explosion knocked Anna off of her feet, and this purple...goo landed on some of the MI next to her. Almost immediately he started screaming like a damned soul as the acid ate its way through his armor and skin. "Ivanov! Get those missiles flying!" Sergeant Grant yelled.

"You heard the man! Roberts and Swanson, as one blow them to hell!" Anna ordered.

Roberts and Swanson, both carrying the quad missile launcher attachments. They joined the others from the different squads and opened fire. Missiles launched out and slammed into the front ranks of the aliens, obliterating hundreds of them. The MI cheered as at last the alien wall finally slammed to a stop. Lances of light ripped from the sky to slam into the alien swarm and in a blinding explosion, the aliens almost literally ceased to exist. The shockwaves from the blasts knocked several people off of their feet. Anna stumbled but then caught herself as she cheered as the alien swarm sullenly withdrew. Or rather, what was left of it. Pieces of dirt the size of vehicles crashed back to the ground, as the blackened glassy surface seemed to shine in the light.

In a weird way it was beautiful.

"Stop gawking you idiots. Get yourselves situated. The FOB's coming down and you damn well better know what to do!" Sergeant Grant growled. Anna nodded to herself. Better to get started before Grant or any of the others start yelling. More than they usually do at any rate. Joining the rest of her platoon, they spread out and started to patrol the area.

They kept a careful eye out on the sky and the ground. Almost the entirety of the platoon had made it. That wasn't due to just skill, it was also because of the air support that had chased away the alien fliers. Throw in some orbital bombardment and casualties were pretty light for a landing. A thunderous rumble broke through her thoughts and she turned to look at the FOB descend. Take a brick, slap three turbine engines on each side and you have one of the newest additions to the Terran Federation military.

A mobile Forward Operating Base. Designed to be dropped on any world and operate as a complete command and control center for the overall invasion. Engines roaring with fountains of flame erupting from the engines as they fought against gravity to slow the descent of the massive building.

Settling down with a ground-shaking rumble, the dust had barely settled when the FOB opened with a hive of activity. Dropships landed at different pads as the marines disembarked and began to set up the defenses around the base. Despite the FOB being built and run for the MI, it was decided that the Federation marines would do for guarding the base itself, as their armor and skill set wasn't really suited for open field warfare.

Anna didn't have an issue with that, seeing that every MI that wasn't guarding the base was another rifle that could help her kick ass. Further rumbles announced the tanks, mechs and APCs stepped and or rolled out of the FOB. Concussive booms announced the arrival of add ons to the base. The big blocky buildings landed and almost immediately began discharging its cargo.

"No point in standing around." Anna said. She radioed to Sergeant Grant that her squad was continuing their patrol. They fanned out in a loose formation and started walking, scanners and the good old fashioned mark-one eyeball looking in all directions. Thunderous booms and streaks of light lancing from the sky announced further orbital bombardments. On the plains further to the east, clouds erupted and shockwaves hit them a second later. "Hopefully that killed them all." Rogers said. Another member of the squad named Hudson snorted. "I fucking doubt it. Never seen so many goddamn aliens."

"This is your first campaign right?" Rogers asked.

"Yea." Hudson said as he stopped to look behind a large rock. Anna was quiet as usual, but she was pleased that the new kid had the right idea to look behind the large rock without being told. The platoon had been through the meat grinder on a previous campaign against the Bugs. Jones and Hudson were just some of the new faces that had joined them after. Everyone had told Anna that she had earned her promotion to corporal. She damn well knew it was because they had taken so many casualties that someone had to be promoted to fill in the missing spots.

"Tiger to all claws. Rally on me. We have a new mission." The LT said. An icon popped up on their HUD.

Anna turned around and started a light jog to the indicated location on their HUD. Seeing as it was a short distance away, they were one of the first squads to arrive. Others arrived shortly afterwards. It wasn't just Tiger platoon. Ravagers, Sledgehammer, and Ironside platoons were also arriving. APCs and jeeps. It was the entire company plus an armored unit as well. Low voiced murmurs filled the chat as everyone greeted each other, asked about missing friends, or if they had any idea of what was going on.

All conversation stopped when the company commander, a Captain Islands, stood on top of an APC. Whatever he was going to say was lost with a thunderous boom. Heads turned to the sky as a meteorite split the sky. Zooming in revealed that the meteorite was in fact a destroyer. Anna watched as it bent at an angle an entire section of it tore off. Anna was among many who ducked as the burning ship passed over them. Pieces slammed into the glassed field as the section that had torn off slammed into the ground and bounced several times before coming to a stop.

Minutes later, the ship hit the ground in the distance with a large explosion and the ground seemed to shake from the impact. Debris was still falling from the sky when several fighters raced off in the direction of the fallen ship.

"You all just saw what happened!" Islands said. "We're going to mount up, drive out to the crash site of _Foehammer_ to secure the area and for some search and rescue. Mount up! Every second that we waste is another second that those goddamn bug-things have a chance to butcher any possible survivors."

Anna fell in behind with Grant and made sure that her squad made it inside the APC. "Think they're any survivors, Sarge?" Anna asked quietly.

"I hope so. I really fucking hope so." Grant answered, just as quiet.

Claire watched as several drones mutated themselves into spore and sunken colonies. When the humans attacked the main hive, they would not find it an easy target. Next to her, Heracles panted heavily. If the Zerg kept records for speed and or distance running, Heracles would have broken every single one of them.

"What happened?" Claire asked, careful to keep her voice neutral. Yes, she was concerned that her life was in danger, but she had her general. He would handle this.

"I underestimated the speed of the human attack. I had planned to use Kraken to attack their landing zone and slaughter them."

"But?" Claire supplied when he looked reluctant to continue.

"When our ships lost control of the atmosphere, they orbitally bombarded the front lines and annihilated them. Most of our air power was concentrated in the upper atmosphere, to destroy their ships. It's working on that part. One of their ships has crashed a few kilometers from Kraken's main hive. Once they broke through, they could land almost entirely unmolested. Kraken lost its outpost."

"How did they break through?"

Heracles sighed. "They had switched from unloading directly over the planet as I thought they would do. Instead they had dropped their dropships behind them and then attacked. Everything was positioned for their traditional tactics as I had seen in the news. They're...learning and changing."

"Are you, my general?"

Heracles snarled. "Yes my Queen. I won't fall for this again. I have also sent word to the broodmothers and queens. It will please you to know that I have directed broodmother Laraza to ambush the relief force that is heading towards the crashed ship. Once that is slaughtered, we can begin to campaign in earnest. Fenrir is also on its way back. They'll be here in a matter of hours."

"What about Hera?"

"She has stalemated the fleet that she's fighting. But it's going to be awhile before a definitive victor is declared. She feels confident in her odds of a victory. Both ours and the human fleets are chasing each other around the system. Our ships in orbit are retreating, but they are inflicting casualties. Several human ships have been destroyed or forced to retreat. I ordered an increase in the number of our fliers. We'll have to get close and...intimate with the humans to avoid another orbital bombardment."

"Inform Alzrej that she's on her own. I expect that planet to be under our complete and total control by the time we've resolved this mess here." Claire glared in the direction that the humans had landed. She looked her general in the eyes. "I have changed my mind. We're not retreating. We will break the human force and drive it from this world. We will leave when I decide and not a moment before."

Heracles knelt into the creep. "As you wish."

_Short chapter while I prepare for a much longer campaign. Being fanfiction I have decided to change up a few things...like using actual freaking tactics and the like. For realism and also because it drives me insane to see such rampant stupidity. Klendathu anyone? _

_Hope you all enjoyed. _

_-C.H._


End file.
